


Artificial Life And Other Unnatural Things

by snurgle



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst and Porn, Body Horror, Crack, Cringe, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Headcanon, Heartcanon, I Blame Tumblr, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Slash, Mpreg, Multi, Regret, The Author Regrets Everything, What Have I Done, shitpost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:57:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 264,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7935397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snurgle/pseuds/snurgle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time after Delilah's life is lost to her mysterious illness, Peter Walter seems to be coming down with one of his own. It isn't a problem for a man resigned from life itself. But when the symptoms become bizarre and bring a new theory to light, he finds himself in a situation that is, to say the least, unexpected.<br/>Unbeknownst to the world, the incident that brought his automaton band to life wasn't be the only phenomenal accident that would change him forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Conclusion

**Author's Note:**

> BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER WITH POSTING THIS, I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS THIS AUTHOR NOTE.  
> To begin, I want to say that I would not have come up with this pathetic excuse for a fanfiction if it weren't for a certain blog on tumblr called incorrectsteampoweredgiraffe and a certain post that they made back in February of 2016, a short time after I fell face-first into steampunk robot hell. I blame everything in its entirety on them.  
> Because I'm publishing this on the internet where anyone can find it whether on purpose or by accident, I feel like I need to explain myself. A while ago, on incorrectsteampoweredgiraffe, I came across a certain post. I glanced at it, tried to scroll past, then went back to it and giggled for like 10 minutes. If you were wondering what that post was, let me quote for you: "Peter Walter 1 actually physically gave birth to Peters 2 and 3"  
> So because I saw this, I started theorizing, because that's all that I ever do. Believe me, I tried to stop. I really did. The thing is, when I get an idea that's really awful, generally the progression of events is that it bothers the everloving shit out of me so much that eventually I can't take the pent-up cringing anymore and end up writing it. And if it's bad enough, I post it. Which is why I'm here.  
> I wasn't sure what date to pick, and then last night I was reminded that SPG dropped Quintissential today. So here you go, band. Happy Album Drop Day. This is your present. The cringiest thing anyone in your fandom has ever written.  
> I tend to ramble a lot in author notes, especially when I'm feeling a lot of things at once. That's exactly what I did here, and I'm starting to figure that it's about high time that I stop. So, before I go, a few things for you to remember. I am not at all proud of writing this. Please don't accept anything said here as canon. This story is not meant to be sexist, misandrist, transphobic, pro-life or any other shit like that. This is a very specific set of circumstances that just so happen to turn out the way they do. I swear to god it's NOT a social commentary. I am also 100% aware of all inaccuracies and anachronisms. I'm sorry, but some jokes just had to be made. Feel free to trash this story in the comments and shitpost on tumblr and whatever else. Please use blacklisted tags like "SexPG" or something if you do shitpost about it and tag with "artificial life and other unnatural things fic," or if it's easier, "artificial life fic."  
> And please, please, whatever you do... don't let the band find out I wrote this.

 

After approximately three weeks, Peter Alexander Walter finally concluded that his work was killing him.

It was only because he had woken up that morning in the exact same manner that he had for numerous days beforehand. The first thing he saw was a stream of obnoxious sunlight, blazing its way through the gaps in his curtains to fill the room with unnecessary brightness. The light burned his eyelids until he surfaced from sleep, only to be struck first thing by a feeling of overwhelming dizziness.

His head was swimming as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. The sunlight that invaded his room made a point of proving him wrong, though, as the world outside his window had been pitch-black the last time he remembered seeing it. Peter squinted at the light and unearthed one arm from the covers to shield his eyes. He didn’t want any sort of motivation to get out of bed. The only way to keep the symptoms at bay, it seemed, was to move as little as possible. Just being awake, he was already starting to feel ill.

Peter rubbed at his bleary eyes with his fingertips and rolled onto his back. His gaze wandered around the room, trying to find the stout wooden clock that sat atop his bureau. He hoped it wasn’t too late. If the time was even a minute past nine, some maid of his or another would be knocking at his door at any moment.

The clock face told him it was 8:54 in the morning, give or take a minute. Peter sighed heavily. Six minutes would have to do. He hoped that the dissociation in his head would wear off by then. He didn’t have very much faith in the assumption, but he supposed that six minutes was better than nothing.

Some span of time that felt like less than six minutes later, there was a knock at the door accompanied by a chipper, lilting voice. “Mr. Walter? Are you awake, sir?”

Peter inhaled deeply and rubbed at his forehead. “Yes,” he croaked in reply. “I’m awake. I’ll be with you in a moment. Just... let me get dressed.”

“Alright,” the maid outside said. “I’m sorry to wake you, sir- um, I... I-I mean, I didn’t mean to disturb you. No need to rush, sir. Take your time.”

Judging by the stutter, it was definitely Iris who had come to wake him. 

“It’s alright, Iris. Now run along. The other girls probably have work for you already.”

The hallway was silent for a second, then filled with the delicate tapping of scuffed shoes making their way back to the parlor by the entrance where they belonged. Peter stared at the door long after she had gone. It was strange, he thought. Iris seemed to be the only one of his maids who had been coming to his room to wake him, as of late. 

He sighed and ran the fingers of his free hand through his rat’s nest of indigo hair. It pulled as his knuckles slipped past a knot, and he winced. He was halfway to sitting upright and felt almost nothing, so far. For a moment, he wondered if he would be able to get through the rest of the morning without incident.

As soon as he had gotten to his feet, he realized exactly how impossible that would be.

The feeling hit him suddenly with the force of a lead pipe. Peter swayed for a second, then sat back down on the edge of the mattress. Nausea stabbed at him like a knife in his flesh, twisting his insides into a painful knot. He doubled over, arms at his waist, and groaned in exasperation.

Yes, there it was. This was the exact same sensation he had been waking up to for nearly a month.

He sat for a minute, breathing deeply, waiting for the sickening waves to subside. It took longer than he would have liked for the edge to come off, and for him to regain the ability to stand. He gripped the bedpost beside him as he staggered to his feet and took slow, measured breaths, trying to stave off the dizziness in his skull and the unsettled feeling in his stomach. It did help a little bit, which was something. He made his way to the closet, took out a few random articles and threw them at the bed, approached them and collapsed facedown onto the mattress. His stomach was still churning. He swallowed convulsively to numb the feeling of bile burning in his throat, curled up on his side and promptly lost his will to move. 

He wouldn’t mind lying in bed for the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of his life. But, eventually, his conscience got the better of him. It wouldn’t do for him to lay there until the feelings subsided. He wished he could, but there was work to be done. Miriam and her girls were waiting for him. The project he’d left out in the lab wouldn’t finish itself.  He knew that much, but his head and body just weren’t having it today.

It took him far too long to get dressed. Once he had finished, the nausea had at least started to calm down. It usually did a few minutes after waking up. It never disappeared completely, though, and he had learned not to expect it to.  He glanced at the clock again and wished he hadn’t slept so late. It was 9:12. He hoped the maids had found enough work on their own to keep themselves busy while he was absent.

Once out of his room, he noticed the distinct smell of baked goods drifting up from the ground floor. He followed it down the staircase and into the kitchen. Half of Miriam’s staff had gathered there, already working at dusting off shelves and sweeping the floor. The wood-burning stove had been lit, and Peter’s copper kettle sat atop the small flames that flickered through the top. The smell that had drawn him in was coming from a flat metal tray that had been balanced beside the kettle, holding a handful of cinnamon rolls. They had been iced, and the congealed frosting was beginning to melt, dripping and caramelizing on the tray. 

“Linda,” he said to the maid nearest to him. She looked up from her task of cleaning the sink. “Do you know where Miriam is?”

Linda shook her head. “Not sure, Mr. Walter. Probably looking for you, or something else for herself to do.”

“Right, then I suppose I should find her and give her my instructions.” He glanced regretfully at the rolls on the stove and the kettle that was beginning to steam. Eating was the absolute last thing he wanted to do at the moment, and the sight of them made him feel guilty all over again. It was a small matter, though. He’d get over his sickness eventually, and once he did, they would still be there.

Before he could step out of the kitchen, he was intercepted by the imposing figure of a large, middle-aged Irish woman. Piercing blue eyes studied him from a ruddy, freckled face. “Ah. There y'are, Master Walter. Weren’t it for Iris, I’d’ve assumed you had already disappeared fer the day.”

“Good morning to you, too, Miriam,” Peter said. The head maid smiled cordially at him before brushing past into the kitchen. He followed her, planning to take a few rolls from the tray to eat whenever he felt up to it. Black tea would probably help, too.

Miriam cozied up beside Linda and lifted a tin pail up to the running tap of the sink. “What’s on the agenda fer today, sir? Anything particular we should take care of?”

“Just the usual routine, for the most part,” Peter instructed. He took a teacup and saucer from the cabinet. “There is one thing that needs addressing, though.”

“What’s that, then?”

“Do you have any girls who don’t mind spiders?”

Miriam placed her pail on the floor and crossed her arms over her ample chest. “We ain’t duchesses, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Well, I keep finding spiderwebs on the leftmost shelf in the library. I know the window next to it blows open from time to time, and something might have gotten in. Perhaps you could assign someone to clear the webs away, maybe examine the latch? I’ll fix it on my own time, if it’s broken. It’s been a while since they were last replaced.”

“Leave it to me, sir,” Miriam said with an affirmative nod. She gathered her supplies and started for the stairwell.

“One last thing, Miriam,” Peter called after her. The woman paused and glanced back at him. He gestured to the kettle and cinnamon rolls. “Was it you that set all of this out?” 

“No,” she replied with a shake of her head. “M’afraid not. It’s another one of the girls again.”

“So it is,” Peter said absently. He heard Miriam’s heavy footsteps fade elsewhere in the house as he took out a tea strainer from a drawer and began spooning leaves into it from a ceramic jar in the pantry. The kettle whistled and he quickly lifted it from the flame. A warm amber color blossomed in the water as he poured it into the cup. He moved the tray of rolls from the stove and set it on the counter, then plucked two from the glaze of hot sugar that glued them down and placed them on the saucer. They were warm, the thin stripes of icing oozing over the edges of the pastry and onto his fingertips. He licked some of it away before setting out to his upstairs study. He had some documents to organize before he could start work in the lab. 

The house was alive with activity as it never was at any other time of day. The maids had scattered, but Peter could still hear them. Somewhere in the echoing manor, two were chattering in what sounded like German. He heard Linda start to sing some Spanish folk song while she worked in the kitchen.

“E-excuse me, Mr. Walter?”

Peter stopped in his tracks. Just down the hall, a maid was kneeling on the floor beside a pail and a scouring brush. She looked even smaller like that, on her knees, one hand outstretched towards him.

“Yes, Iris?” he replied.

Iris got to her feet, moving gingerly, and scurried in his direction. She offered up her hands, looking at the saucer and teacup he held. “Let me carry those for you.”

“That’s not necessary, Iris. It’s perfectly fine if-”

“I-I meant to tell you that I’ve been washing the tiles in here,” the maid stammered, cutting him off. “I started at the other end, but when I heard you coming I realized your study was this way, and I wouldn’t want you to slip...” She stopped abruptly, realizing her mistake, and turned her face up to him, her dark eyes wide open and ashamed. “I’m... I’m sorry, Mr. Walter, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s alright, Iris,” Peter said calmly, and for what was probably the thousandth time he’d said it. Iris’s expression softened a little, as if he’d forgiven her for some serious offense. He glanced at the saucer in his hand. “You can carry this, if it would make you feel better.”

“Th-thank you, Mr. Walter.” She gently took the saucer from him and led him, stepping carefully, across the slick hallway floor. At the study door, she returned it to him with just as much care.

“I appreciate your consideration,” Peter said, doing his best to smile at Iris. “Now, as you were.”

“Yes, Mr. Walter,” Iris affirmed, nodding enthusiastically. She made her way back to her pail and brush, glanced at the faint footprints she had left in the sheen on the tiles, and immediately returned to her task. Peter watched her for a second before disappearing into his study and closing the door.

The study was, as usual, in a state of relative disarray. The maids were always instructed to touch it last out of all the rooms in the house, and with good reason. The room was a fine mess of blueprints, notes and sketches scattered over every surface possible, open half-read books left out of their shelves, random photographs, clippings and journals and other nameless paraphernalia. Peter placed the tea and saucer on the desk and went about attempting to organize the disaster area. As he did, he found himself thinking about Iris again.

She perplexed him. She always had, from the first day she arrived to perform her services for the manor. Iris was always obedient, always ready, willing and waiting to take commands from just about anyone, be it Peter, Miriam, or any of the other maids. It stood to reason, as that was the attitude most servants are expected to have. But Iris... Iris was different.

Peter thought back to the hallway. Without his even having to ask, Iris had been right there, ready to serve him, almost fawningly so. It wasn’t the first time she had acted that way. In fact, he’d almost come to think it was normal. But there was something inexplicably strange about how she had gone about it. 

She had thanked him for giving her orders. Something about that just didn’t seem right.

While shuffling through the mountain of papers on his desk, he thought about Iris’s time serving at his manor. She’d always been a bit of a whipping girl. He tried to avoid taking advantage of her passivity, but Miriam and her other maids barely seemed to notice. Iris never failed to do whatever she was told, and as it was, she always seemed to be doing the dirty work; Iris was always the one who dealt with wasps’ nests and spiderwebs, the one who cleaned bathrooms and cleared out the rubbish bins. Most notably, she’d been the only one that Miriam would send to fetch him in the morning, as if waking him up were some great, perilous task. Perhaps it was because she was the newest employee of the housekeeping staff and still had to prove herself. Miriam and her company had been in the business for years, employing subordinate maids and keeping eccentrics like himself from living in total squalor. He was Iris’s first client working under Miriam. The woman had told him herself as soon as he hired her and her team. It had been nearly three years since Miriam’s staff had been helping him keep the old, nearly-crumbling mansion in a liveable condition. In all that time, Iris hadn’t changed in the slightest. 

_ Such an odd bird _ , Peter thought to himself as he pushed books back onto shelves.  _ Whatever could have happened to her to make her act like that? _

A stack of papers was pushed from the desk’s surface to be placed in a drawer, and a small sheet of something-or-other that had been hiding underneath was suddenly exposed. It caught Peter’s eye, just for a second, before he forced himself to look away again. It was a sepia photograph, folded across the middle and dog-eared at the corners, but still holding an image that was all too clear. It was a young lady, bright-eyed and smiling, wrapped up in pale cotton and scads of buttons. A lab coat, the uniform issued by the old Cavalcadium before it had disappeared. She stood outside the huge, Roman-style building, leaned against a marble column with a set of lab goggles resting atop her head amidst waves of thick honey-brown hair.

Something in Peter’s chest cramped, and he glanced back at the table. He could have sworn that he’d put the rest of his photographs of Delilah away. Once he looked, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes away. He rested a hand on the table and stared down at the picture. Delilah stared back at him with lively eyes that had once been a beautiful foggy blue. He remembered it well. And the memory made him feel sick all over again.

Peter pushed the photograph aside and sank down into the overstuffed leather chair behind the desk. He wasn’t in the mood for this. It was far too early in the morning to be having yet another emotional crisis about the same thing he’d already been grieving over for far too long. He gazed at the picture for a while, now overturned and showing only the blank white back of the film and Delilah’s messy signature, along with a scribbled message that he didn’t care to read again. He already knew what it said.

_ For my dear friend, Peter. You will do great things! _

Trying to focus on anything but the tightness in his throat, Peter remembered the tea and cinnamon rolls he’d left on the desk. He leaned over and pushed them towards himself, then lifted one roll from the saucer and took a savage bite out of the side. Food seemed to take away at least some of the sharp pains that stabbed at his core. The cinnamon roll had cooled quickly, no longer warm and soft as it had been, and the icing had begun to harden but still oozed over his fingers. He finished the first roll and chased it with tea, which had cooled to a tolerable temperature while he’d been clearing the study. The sick feelings in his stomach had subsided again once both rolls were gone, but something still unsettled him. Something still hurt, and it wasn’t something that pastries and tea could fix.

After licking the remaining glaze from his fingers and cleaning them on a piece of scrap paper, Peter reached for the photograph again. He flipped it over and gazed at Delilah’s sweet, smiling face. He could see it well in this one. The lighting was good, as was the film. He wouldn’t dare leave it lying around for one of the maids to discover. Might as well bring it with him to the lab. He could always use another reference.

Peter picked up a journal, carefully folded the photo into the pages, then picked up his used china and approached the door. He gave the study one last once-over. It seemed tidy enough. He left it at that and walked out. The hallway outside was empty, Iris gone, and the floor almost completely dry, except for a few spots where he vaguely remembered walking with her to the study door. He traveled to the landing, down to the ground floor and passed by the kitchen to leave his dishes in the freshly-cleaned sink, offering up a silent apology to Miriam’s staff for ruining their work so soon after it was finished. The house still buzzed as the maids went about their work. Peter passed by a few, who smiled and waved to him, on his way to the heavy oaken door at the back of the library. The spiderwebs on the leftmost shelf were gone, and the faulty window was shut. Iris had just been there, most likely. 

The stairs to the basement were steep and cold, the bare stone surface an unwelcoming sight. Peter had grown used to it, though. He flicked a switch beside the doorframe and a row of electric lights flickered on, illuminating the staircase and rooms below in a soft yellowish glow. After passing through a storage space cluttered with boxes and defunct mechanical parts, there was another set of stairs with another switch, this one lighting up the staircase ahead in fluorescent white. Finally, Peter reached his workspace at the bottom.

Here it was even messier than the study. All manner of machinery lined the walls, not including the furnace and boilers that sat alone and ordinary in their respective corners. Wires crisscrossed the smooth floor, and at the very center was one of a few large, steel-topped tables. On it sat something that couldn’t quite be called a skeleton, but wasn’t very much more than that. Peter drew near and pulled a small metal cart along with him, toting even more sketches, notes and blueprints. In a metal lattice on one side, there were a handful of photographs held with clothespins amongst the rods. They were all of the same woman, the one who had been staring Peter down in his study only a few minutes before. Peter left the latest photograph on the table and went off to find a clean lab coat. He fastened it over his clothes and came back to the cart with a clothespin in his pocket. He pinned the photograph of Delilah to the lattice, leaving her among her identical sisters.

Peter stood back a moment to look at and appraise his work. She looked good so far. The iron in her “bones” had connected smoothly when Peter had spot-smelted them together. He tested a few of the joints. Over forty-eight hours, and they still held together and moved smoothly, not even squeaking. The cogs in her torso still sat dormant and untested, though. He had yet to add wires, connect everything together that would enable her to move on her own. Design was always a painstaking process, and it had taken him longer than expected to mold and cast the metal that would eventually give her a shape. The brass-copper pieces of her outer shell were still raw, wrapped in canvas and sitting in the crate where he’d carefully placed them as soon as they had cooled from the fires. He would sand and polish them into shape once he got around to it. But before his creation could be pretty, he had to make sure she worked.

A strange device sat in the half-empty cavity of what the automaton’s chest would be. Inside it, there was a drop of some faintly blue substance. It glowed dully in its small plexiglass enclosure, paralyzed into a swirled, slimy-looking shape like blown glass. It seemed to melt as Peter picked the device up, reshaping to the side of the device. “Hm. Weaker than usual today,” he mumbled to himself.

If his research told him anything, it was that blue matter was a fickle substance. It held great power, he knew, unspeakably great power that he could feel was just waiting for him to tap into it. And he would be able to harness it, if only it would stay together. Many times he’d been able to summon it from other materials and tried to capture it. The small, unimpressive blob in the automaton’s core was all that he had managed to keep. The rest had all dissipated somehow. Sometimes it vaporized seconds after appearing, sometimes it stayed for several minutes and allowed him to touch it, even try to manipulate it. Sometimes it had even stayed long enough for him to seal it into the core, only to dissolve into its surroundings hours later. He would keep trying, though. Peter Alexander Walter wasn’t known to give up on these things easily.

The concept of time seemed to slip from Peter’s mind as he sat on the rolling stool beside the worktable, tinkering with the mechanics that would someday let his creation’s face move. Once his hands had been thoroughly blackened with oil, he wiped them off on a rag hanging from the nearby cart. He’d spent long enough on something he knew he could do. It was high time he made an attempt that was a little less sure.

There was no way to tell exactly how long he spent trying to gain more blue matter, but it definitely felt longer than he’d spent working on the robot’s facial mechanisms. His first attempt went slowly, and the matter disappeared again with a puff of phosphorescent smoke only a few seconds after he drew it out. The second lasted longer, but only by a little. Still, Peter felt he was getting closer, and kept trying. At least, he kept trying until the sickness came back again.

The matter had stayed in his hands for over a minute that time. He had held it, pliable and solid one second, and the next, there was a knife in his guts and his fingers had faltered. The blue matter slipped from his grasp, hurtled to the floor and evaporated as it struck the cold linoleum.

Peter stepped back from the would-be mess, cursing under his breath. The nausea had struck him more suddenly than ever. He staggered over to the worktable, leaned back against it and sank down to the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest, doubled over and trying to restrain his painfully lurching stomach. It didn’t do a single thing to help. He felt his mouth starting to water and bile crawling up his throat, leaving him barely enough time to lunge for the wastebasket in the corner. He dragged it towards himself only a second before his body arched over and his breakfast made a fast and very unpleasant reappearance.

He stayed on his knees, heaving for a few moments, before he spit out the last of the acid on his tongue and sat back against the table. He wiped his mouth with the edge of his sleeve, glanced at the odd-colored stain it left and grimaced. He would clean this himself. No maid deserved being told to pick up after a mess this nasty.

Peter didn’t get up for a while. This time, he would stay on the floor for as long as the uneasiness stayed in his stomach. Moving would only make it worse, and  _ worse  _ was the absolute last thing he needed at the moment. He noticed the cart nearby. The lattice of Delilah was staring at him. His face burned. She wasn’t even really there, and yet he still felt humiliated. He leaned over and nudged the cart away so she couldn’t see him.

It was the radiation. It had to be the radiation. He’d been working with it so long, but he had never bothered to find out exactly what it was doing to him. He looked at his hands resting on his forearms, compressed between his legs and his body. Pale, paper-white skin gazed back at him, with faint blue tint along the edges of his nails, almost like stained glass. The blue matter had changed him somehow, though he couldn’t say exactly what it had done. It had seemingly sucked the pigment from his skin, then turned his hair blue, his blood blue, and... other things. All blue. He’d been blue for a long time, and it had never seemed to be doing him any harm. 

He had already entertained the thought that he had been wrong all this time. Delilah had been wrong, and it was that wrongness that had taken her life. 

Peter should have known better than to work uninformed with a strange substance, unprotected, sometimes not even wearing gloves. Radioactivity was no laughing matter. He knew of people who had died for their work before. There were studies running at the Cavalcadium before it had been swept from the surface of the Earth, and sadly none of them had lasted long enough for completion. First the building was gone, then Delilah. And now... Now Peter had the ominous feeling hanging over his head that he would be next.

He’d thought of it before. In fact, he had considered it many times since he first started having trouble keeping food down. There was no other feasible explanation. He had never cared, though. The world he lived in didn’t interest him very much anymore. After all, what did it have to offer him? A lot of strangers to feign a smile for? A few drinks in a darkened room, or a meaningless name and face to spend a night with? An old, empty mansion that echoed his own loneliness back at him? A best friend who had turned against him, then abandoned him in his time of need to pursue his own endeavors? 

He’d tried to find something. There had been moments when he was gripped with fear that it was true, that the glowing blue substance that he had worked so hard to harness would put an end to him and he would follow the same path that Delilah had, so quickly and unexpectedly. In those moments, he had searched for something to hang onto. Some motivation to stay alive, something worth putting his life’s work aside and letting his appearance turn back to what it once was. And just like summoning the blue matter, never once had he been met with sufficient success.

His work was the only thing that was still there for him. And if it was his work that killed him, then so be it. 

Peter crept back upstairs once the nausea spell began to fade. Two flights of stairs put him back in the library. The manor was quiet again. The maids must have finished their work and moved on. His footsteps echoed in from room to room as he returned to the kitchen. The fire in the stove had been hushed down to a few glowing embers. The cinnamon rolls had been taken from their tray, packaged neatly into a glass container from his cabinet and sealed with a strip of linen between the dish and lid. He took another one out and stuffed half of it into his mouth. He didn’t know how long it would stay with him, in his condition, but he had to at least try. 

He wouldn’t have objected to a drink, if he’d had anything available. Even so long after his last nauseous episode, he was still reeling, and not just from the vomit. He would have jumped at the chance to get anything to numb the nagging, subtle pangs that clawed at his heart as well as his other organs. But everything alcoholic that he’d had stored up in his pantry had been drained already, and there was no way in hell that he would go out for the sole purpose of obtaining more. He was past that, he’d convinced himself. He didn’t cope with his grief that way anymore. Besides, drinking would only serve to make his problem worse.

The class container short of one more cinnamon roll, he started back toward the lab. In the silence, he heard a clattering coming from somewhere ahead of him. His pace quickened, and when he entered the library, he saw that Iris was standing at the window. There was a small toolbox at her feet that he hadn’t noticed before. He opened his mouth to call out to her, but before had even inhaled to speak, she turned toward him, a startled look in her eyes. “M-Mr. Walter!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I-I didn’t see you leave the lab. I thought...”

“It’s no matter, Iris,” Peter said. He approached, trying to seem unthreatening. “Working on the window, I see?”

Iris smiled shyly and nodded. “Y-yes. Miriam and the other girls left, but she told me that if I ran out to the hardware store to get a new hinge and stayed late to repair it, I could have the rest of the day off.” She picked up a defective hinge from the floor and pointed out the thick black gouges in the brass. “See, these old ones were stripped, and so was the latch. I managed to get some new ones that wouldn’t swing so easy with the money that Miriam gave me. I couldn’t pay for a whole new latch, though.”

“So that was the problem. Whatever will keep the spiders out.” Peter leaned in and examined her handiwork. Two of the hinges had been replaced, and Iris was in the process of adding the third. The new hinges had been put into place with almost excessive caution, the screws lining up at a perfect angle with the holes, falling directly in line with the wainscotting. “You’ve done a very good job.”

Iris gasped. “Really?”

“Yes. Of course,” Peter replied, offering her a smile. “I didn’t know you work with hardware.”

“Well, I don’t. Not on a regular basis. But I know a few simple repairs, and I can do just about anything when I have to.”

“Still, these are impressively precise. I probably should be doing this myself. I’d only asked for an evaluation.”

“Well, Miriam figured that, since you’re such a busy man, you could use a little help.”

“That _ is _ why I hired you girls, I suppose,” Peter admitted. “I can take care of the rest of this, if you’d like. You may as well enjoy the rest of your day.”

Iris’s ashy brown face seemed to turn a few shades paler. If her eyes could have widened any more, they definitely did right then. “M-Mr. Walter, I... I told Miriam I would finish, I couldn’t...”

“Miriam doesn’t have to know,” Peter flippantly cut in. “And to be honest, I should have been paying better attention to the state of my home. This window’s been broken a long time, and I probably should have fixed it much sooner. Besides, Iris, you seem tired. You could probably use a rest.”

“Mr. Walter...”

“I’ll tell her that I found you just as you were finishing. And don’t worry about the latch. I can take care of that myself. Now go on home. I’m sure you’ve done more than enough to earn your wages today.”

Iris was almost trembling. She nodded her head, the dark curls that slipped from her bun bouncing with the motion. “Yes, Mr. Walter. Of course.” She began backing toward the doorway. “Thank you. Th-thank you so much. I... I can’t thank you enough. I’ll make this up to you somehow. I promise I will, Mr. Walter.”

“Iris, please, that’s not necessary,” Peter said, and a laugh bubbled out of his mouth. “You don’t owe me a single thing. Now go.”

“I will, Mr. Walter. And thank you. Thank you so much.” Iris’s smile was bright enough to challenge the sun as she slipped through the door and disappeared around the corner.

Peter spent the remainder of the day working on the window. He finished the hinges first, then removed the latch to examine its structure. A new one was fashioned out of some spare parts he kept in storage, and when it was finished, it held well enough. He thought back to Iris’s orders from Miriam, and briefly wondered if she would have been willing to go out and get him a bottle of something intoxicating to bring back, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it appeared in his head. He couldn’t put her up to so selfish a task.

Peter went back to his lab shortly after to properly dispose of the mess that his breakfast had turned into, as well as wash out the stain it had left on his sleeve. That went quickly, and afterwards it was back to work putting together the mechanics of his automaton. She looked no prettier by the time he had finished teasing together the moving parts in her head, but where her metal skull was once hollow, it was now at least beginning to take on a slight resemblance to the internal workings of a human face.

The sun had set by the time Peter returned to the upper levels of the manor. The towering grandfather clock in the library chimed seven. Night had been coming later and later, which Peter figured made sense, as the summer was fast approaching. He went to the kitchen, fixed himself something to eat and carried it to the library, where he pored over a few works of fiction to keep his mind occupied. He’d become quite fond of Poe lately, probably because of his moods. The stories he read were engaging enough to keep him thinking about matters of tone and nuance, and more importantly, disturbing enough to keep him distracted and stop his mind from drifting to even darker subjects. 

He’d never been squeamish when it came to stories. Tonight, however, his stomach seemed to have plans of its own. Not half an hour after he’d left his empty plate on the coffee table beside him, he began to feel nauseous again. He quickly put down the Poe anthology and sat deathly still, taking slow, measured breaths. He was not going to be throwing up twice in one day. Fighting the urge to retch the contents of his stomach out onto the floor, he calmly picked up his plate, returned it to the kitchen, and went upstairs to the bathroom beside his room. He was covered in oil, rust and cobwebs from the day’s work, and he couldn’t fall asleep with those smells lingering in his nose.

Peter managed to keep his composure until he closed the door.  Not a second later, a powerful twist in his core sent him staggering toward the water closet. Once again, he was forced to purge out the little food he’d been able to make himself eat. This time the nausea was fast and violent, fading from his system almost as soon as he’d given in to it. He knelt on the floor a moment, shivering, before angrily swiping away the remains from his mouth and disposing of the whole acrid-smelling mess. 

It was getting worse. Peter could feel it. He’d never been so weak in the face of this sickness before. 

He might have gone to a doctor about it, had he not already seen every one that the city of San Diego had to offer. None of them had seemed to be able to help him. He’d tried all of their remedies, and none had helped. There was the brief reprieve sometimes, the placebo effect of some pill or another that fooled him into thinking he’d been cured, but not a single thing had stayed. He was tired of hearing their routine explanations of influenza, a short-lived stomach bug, and numerous other things that he hadn’t bothered to remember. 

It had to be the exposure that was doing this to him. He couldn’t find it in him to try and stop it, though. There didn’t seem to be any healing for him, regardless of what he did. There was only illness, and more illness. It didn’t matter to him anymore. He was already miserable, and if that heralded the end of his life approaching, he didn’t care, as long as it ended soon.

Peter stood up, moved to the sink and ran cold water through his mouth in an attempt to erase the taste of his own vomit. It was slow going. He straightened his posture and stared at himself in the mirror. Pale. He was so pale. Even more so than before, if he was seeing correctly. It highlighted the dark circles under his eyes perfectly. Now everyone who looked at him could see how much sleep he’d been losing over something that had happened so far in the past.

Quickly and roughly, Peter began shelling his clothes off to take a bath. Once he had gotten rid of the dusty, metallic smell that permeated his skin, he could retreat to his room and read more horrific poetry until he passed into oblivion and forgot that this excruciating day had happened. It wasn’t until then that he noticed the marks left on his skin. 

His clothes were in a pile on the floor, and he was running a hand under the stream from the tap, waiting for the old, faulty boiler to heat it up. He saw the first ones on his legs. They were smooth, straight lines indented into the sides of his thighs. Peter removed his hand from the tap and ran his fingertips over them. He felt the small dip in his skin on both the inner and outer edges, running from his knees up to his hips.  _ Strange _ , he thought.  _ That’s the same place as the seams in my pants.  _

Then his fingers crossed over new lines. They ran across his hips in a similar fashion, where the waistband rested. There were marks on his sides as well, where the seams of his vest fell, along with some odd wrinkles where his shirt had been held tight underneath. The marks were all faintly blue, seemingly pressed into his skin. It was odd. He’d never noticed them before. It was as if his clothing had become tighter, ever so slightly. It hadn’t been enough for him to feel it when he dressed, but it had apparently been enough to make the folds and seams leave dents in his skin.

As he stepped into the bath and shut the tap off, the marks began to fade. He ran his fingertips over them until they disappeared, deep in thought. Tight clothing had never been something that he had worried about before. In comparison to most men his height, Peter was a skeleton. Fitting into clothing was something of an issue for him. He often needed to alter garments to keep them from slipping off of his skinny frame. He hadn’t bought anything new for his wardrobe in several years for that very reason. As far as he knew, everything still fit him perfectly fine. The marks were a bit concerning for him, though. He’d never seen them before. As far as he knew, there was no reason for the seams of his clothes to be leaving pressure marks on him, unless...

Unless they weren’t fitting him the same way anymore.

Peter abruptly sat up, sending a small wave over the side of the bath. He hurriedly washed his hair and scrubbed the oil stains out of his skin. Confusion sank its teeth into his thoughts as he finished bathing. He couldn’t be gaining weight. It just wasn’t possible. He’d been ill for weeks; vomiting on an almost daily basis, barely able to make himself eat, struck at almost all times with an unfounded aversion to food. He was surprised he hadn’t become malnourished already. Staying the same weight; that was at least feasible. But gaining it? It just didn’t make any sense.

He dried himself off and returned to his room to put on a set of pajamas, then rushed back into the lab. He didn’t have a scale that he frequently used. The closest he could come to that was the one he used for the weights and measures of material shipments and those of his completed creations. The contraption was built to measure up to 500 pounds. Peter wasn’t all that sure of his own weight, but he knew it wouldn’t come even close to the scale’s limits. 

He flicked the lights on at the top of the stairs and rushed into the lab, past his half-finished project and to the platform and gauge in the back. He stepped onto it, then stepped off to grab a pencil and blank paper and returned to the platform. He glanced at the reading of the gauge, tried to figure out where the needle hovered between tiny tic marks, and began scribbling notes down on the paper, starting with the day’s date.

_ May 4, 1896- 151.4 lbs _

Peter stared at the measurement for a moment.  _ What am I doing?  _  he found himself questioning in his head.  _ This just doesn’t seem right. I don’t look or feel any different.  I can’t be gaining weight.   _

_ It may not be right, but it’s worth an investigation,  _ he contested in his own voice.  _ And if it isn’t true, then at least I’ll have an answer. _

He stepped off the scale, folded the paper in half and left it on the metal cart. He glanced back at the lab one last time before shutting off the light and leaving. He was out of energy for the day. He’d barely been able to keep up any at all, even while the sun was out, and at that point in the evening, he was completely spent.

The thought of his discovery still bothered him as he tried to push it away with words on a page. It still seemed so ludicrous. Those marks. Maybe he’d always had them, and he had simply never noticed before. That could always be the case, couldn’t it?

_ It’s too late to think about this now _ , he told himself. He folded the corner of his current page and put out the lamp on the nightstand beside his bed. From then on, whatever was happening to him, only time would be able to tell.


	2. Reluctant Developments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, no one cares.  
> To put it simply, I kind of want to get this whole shitshow out of my system as fast as I can. In order to do that, I'll probably be posting around a chapter a week. It might vary based on real-life events, and also the fact that this story isn't actually finished yet. That, combined with the fact that I often do this shit instead of going to sleep at a reasonable time, should even out to a pretty regular schedule of updates.  
> With only 22 hits, I'm not at all surprised that there were no comments at all on the first chapter. But just in case, I'm going to answer a bunch of questions that nobody asked. First of all, in this story at least, Iris is black. There might have been some imagery that didn't make sense if there's anyone that imagines her differently. The thing is that there's little to nothing that we know about this character, so that left a lot of leeway for me to develop her in whatever way I wanted and bounce her and Peter's interactions off of that. I'm just doing what I've seen done in a few other people's headcanons and what would seem at least relatively period-accurate. As you might have gathered, I wrote her in as a pretty demure character, and kind of imagined that Peter didn't grow up in the richest of families and probably never had servants before. I have no idea if that sounds right to anyone who knows anything about these two. I've been told my my beta reader, volatileSoloiste, that it's good, but I've got nothing in terms of viewers that are actually in this fandom.  
> Anyway, anachronisms are a thing here, and I'm a very lazy writer. Spoiler alert: most of those are related to gay rights and feminism. This is what happens when you expose a lesbian to the internet, people. Take notes.  
> Time for further cringing.

 

_May 11, 1896-  153.7 lbs_

It was the second time Peter had read that measurement from the scale.

The engineer sighed and glanced back and forth between his notes and the scale reading, blinking in disbelief. _This can’t be right._

He’d been thinking the same thing for the past six days. He had to be doing something wrong when he was taking these measurements. The scale must have been calibrated incorrectly, or there was some factor to consider in what he’d eaten or what he was wearing each time he weighed himself. But according to his notes, it was all there. Over the past week, he had gained 2.3 pounds. And by now, it wasn’t just in his data collection that it showed.

His clothes had been leaving pressure marks in his skin every day since the first night he’d discovered them. He made a point of looking for them every night now, and he never failed to find them. Now that his attention had been caught, he’d noticed a slight, uncomfortable pressure that his more fitted garments exerted on his flesh, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since he hit his growth spurt. He felt it even now, as he mulled over the results of his latest measurement, having weighed himself without a lab coat, nothing in his pockets, his last meal having been hours before with half of it being promptly regurgitated.

Peter studied the measurements, squinting, as if the graphite lines would tell him something more than the words and numbers they formed. He would have to look into this. There were probably medical books hiding somewhere in his library. The shelves were definitely big enough to host any number of tomes he’d forgotten he owned. If none of the doctors he’d seen could help him, then perhaps he’d be able to help himself.

The maids were long gone when Peter emerged from the lab. He’d woken up nauseated again that morning, as he’d expected. Iris had waited for him outside his door after coming to fetch him. Thought he sounded as though something were wrong, she said. He sounded “off.” He had thought that he was doing a good job of keeping his condition under wraps, or at least was doing a good enough job to keep the maids from asking questions. He couldn’t refuse Iris, though. She’d waited for nearly fifteen minutes to see him, and when they were finally face-to-face, there was genuine worry written all over hers. So he’d confessed, albeit minimally. He told her that he’d been feeling under the weather for a long time. Couldn’t find a reason why. She suggested he see a doctor about it. He agreed, decidedly neglecting to tell her that he had already seen several, and asked that she not tell the rest of the housekeeping staff about what he’d just shared. Iris promised to keep quiet, of course, and they had left it at that. It seemed simple enough. She didn’t need to know exactly how complicated everything had become.

Peter started rifling through the extensive shelves that lined the room. There were so many places to look, he wasn’t sure where to start. He began with the top shelves, sliding from one end of the room to the other on the rolling ladder attached to the bookcase, screening titles and moving steadily downward. There were a number of textbooks left over from his university studies, some of which might be of use. There were a few other health manuals hidden in the shelves, even a rare professional-grade medical guidebook. All the same, his final haul was disappointingly small, for the potential that the massive bookshelves had offered. A short stack of books sat atop the coffee table beside the chaise lounge where he sat. He began sifting through the pages, not wasting a second, skimming paragraph after paragraph of fine print, trying to find at least some semblance of an explanation that he hadn’t already been given.

He looked up _vomiting_ first. That lead him to _vomiting, frequent_ . Next he went to _nausea_ , then _stomach upset_ , then, hesitantly, he looked into _weight gain_ . Only a few of his selection had anything to say on _weight gain, unexplained_. The results didn’t look pleasant for that one. His mind fell victim to all manner of descriptions for severe, untreatable conditions, some of which he briefly considered. But there were none that coincided with the nausea. There didn’t seem to be any answers that he could find.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one condition that matched up to his almost perfectly. Unexplained weight gain, it began. Frequent nausea and vomiting, aversion to food, emotional volatility, it continued. It made some measure of sense, and he was dangerously close to believing it. And maybe he would have, if Peter hadn’t been able to see the title printed in bold above the article.

This wasn’t it. This was ridiculous. There was no way that _this_ was his problem. It couldn’t possibly be that this was the reason behind all his weeks of distress.

Could it?

Peter stared at the page a moment longer. He flicked at the corner with his fingertips, thinking. It didn’t sound right to him, but he didn’t see any other explanation. If this was the only answer he had, then there must have been some way it could have happened. He didn’t know of one, though. He may have been a scientist, but that wasn’t his specialty. He was no biology aficionado.

For a second, Peter froze. His thought process paused as the sentence crossed his mind. He turned around his train of thoughts and went back to it. It was true. He was no biology aficionado. But he knew someone who was.

Peter resolutely snapped the book shut and left it on top of the stack before standing up and starting towards the stairs. It was settled. He would send Johona a telegram first thing in the morning.

* * *

The message to Willcox, Arizona ran something like this.

**Dear Johona STOP I realize we have not spoken in a while STOP However I must request a visit STOP This is an urgent matter that I feel only you will understand STOP Please reply quickly STOP Sincerely STOP Your friend Peter Walter STOP**

After stopping at the post office, Peter had passed by the city library to see if the municipality had anything more useful to offer. The answers he received there were hardly any different from those he had culled from his own collection. There was one tidbit of information he’d happened to miss before, though. It hadn’t been something he was considering, since he had barely even considered the possibility of the problem it would allegedly solve. But if Johona decided not to respond for a while, he couldn’t afford to wait around for her. Besides, an unproven solution was better than no solution at all.

Peter returned home with two clusters of pennyroyal stowed in a paper bag under one arm and a small jug of turpentine under the other. He whispered thanks into the empty space of the manor that no one but he would be there for the rest of the day. For once, he was glad to be totally alone in that cavernous house.

He made his way upstairs to the bathroom and laid his purchases out on the edge of the sink. He remembered the herbs in the bag, and quickly detoured down to the kitchen to store them alongside his tea-making supplies. The turpentine would stay where it was.

Peter returned to the bathroom with a set of measuring spoons in one hand. He flicked through the measurements, one after the other. About a tablespoon would do it, the guide had said. If it didn’t work the first time around, he’d simply have to do it again until it did. This procedure wasn’t something he predicted he’d want to repeat, so he had to be sure he’d do it right the first time around.

He held the tablespoon out, keeping it level, and carefully unscrewed the cap from the turpentine jug. He held his breath and poured out the required dose slowly, taking care not to lose a single drop. Once the liquid was level with the brim of the spoon, he tilted the jug back, careful not to let any spill. The sick-sweet smell of anise drifted up to his face and made him shudder. He wasn’t going to enjoy this, but he couldn’t risk screwing it up.

“Bottoms up,” he murmured to himself before tilting his head back and pouring the bitter liquid into his mouth.

* * *

 Johona’s telegram came in three days later.

**I would apologize for keeping you waiting but I suppose it is only proper with how long it has been since I last heard from you STOP**

Peter rolled his eyes as he read. She hadn’t even seen him yet, and here she was, already chiding him for his misbehavior.

**I am sorry to hear of your situation STOP I have requested emergency leave from my employer STOP I should reach San Diego on the seventeenth STOP I look forward to seeing you STOP**

“May I interrupt ye a moment, Master Walter?”

Peter started at Miriam’s sudden appearance. “Ah. Miriam,” he said, sounding listless. “Of course. Is there something you need?”

“I’d be in my right mind to ask ye the same question,” the maid replied, hands on her hips. “I’ve been informed by a few of the girls that ye haven’t quite been yourself as of late.”

“Really?” Peter did his best to sound confused. It wasn’t like Iris to go against his orders. “Who told you?”

“A better thing to ask’d be who hasn’t told me. Linda and Gretchen haven’t gone a day without mentionin’ your funny behavior, and now Hilda’s heard about it and been makin’ all sorts a speculations.”

“Oh. Speculations, you say.” So it hadn’t been Iris who told Miriam about him. There was at least one semblance of normalcy he’d managed to keep in his life. Even if she had been the one to tell the head maid, he wouldn’t have reprimanded her. It was all out of kindness, he supposed.

“Yer making the girls worry, Master Walter,” Miriam said solemnly. Lines of concern were etched into her freckled face. “If there happens to be something wrong, I could surely make an arrangement of some kind fer ya. I’ve many contacts, and you know that my maids are quite versatile.”

“That’s very kind of you, Miriam,” Peter replied. “I don’t know that it’s necessary, though.”

“Are ye sure? The maids’ve been botherin’ me about this for some time now.”

“I think I’ll be alright for now. I’ve just sent a message out to someone who I believe can help me, actually.” He held up the printed telegram, as if he needed to prove his honesty. “You needn’t worry about me. Or any of the girls, for that matter. Let Linda and Gretchen know that whatever is wrong, I’ll soon have it taken care of.”

Miriam hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Alright, then. Whatever ye say, Master Walter.”

With that, she left him alone at the dining room table with the freshly printed telegram. He was glad that Johona was willing to see him on such short notice, in spite of how obviously upset she was with him for staying isolated for so long. She had every right to be. But it would be nice to see a friendly face at the manor for once. One that _wasn’t_ being paid to be there.

He only hoped that the maids hadn’t moved the half-empty turpentine jug he’d hidden under the sink. He still had it, despite the fact that it didn’t seem to be doing a single thing other than make him even sicker than before. He supposed that it was about time he moved on to using the pennyroyal instead.

* * *

On the morning of May 17th, a rickety black cab appeared in front of Peter Walter’s even more rickety mansion. The housekeeping staff had been able to hear it from almost half a mile up the road, the loud engine rattling along the cracked, gravelly pavement leading up to his remote residence. With all the noise, it wasn’t entirely necessary for Iris to approach his study and knock timidly on the door to inform him that he had a visitor. He opened the door a crack to speak with her. No matter how he tried to hide it, she could see the ungodly mess of books and papers inside. There really wasn’t a need for him to be so ashamed, she thought. She knew it was natural for his kind. A mad genius like himself would work best in such conditions. Still, he hid behind the door and kindly asked her to tend to the visitor until he could meet them. Of course, Iris obeyed.

The car that idled in front of the manor had obviously seen better days. It was scratched, dented and dirty, spitting grey smoke from its engine. The passenger side door opened and a stranger stepped out, kicking up a cloud of dust as her boots met with the ground. Iris guessed it was a woman, since the passenger was dressed in a long, sage green skirt and a tan capelet was draped over her shoulders that hid her face from the sunlight. She made quick work of retrieving her belongings from the back of the cab. Carrying three canvas suitcases, two large and one small, she dropped her fee into the driver’s waiting hand and started toward the front door of the manor.

Iris straightened her apron as the visitor approached, trying to seem neat and cheerful as maids were supposed to be. The mid-distant vision of her grew clearer as she approached. When she reached the bottom step of the porch, she shrugged the hood of her capelet away, revealing her face. Iris could tell right away that she was a native of some kind. Her skin was the same warm tan color as the sun-scorched earth, and a long plait of silky black hair had fallen from her hood. She was pretty, in an eccentric sort of way, Iris thought to herself. She was handsome the way that a woodpecker is: not unpleasant to look at, but definitely not existing for that sole purpose. Every bit of her that Iris could see was sharp and angular. Her cheekbones were high and defined, and she had piercing hazel eyes on either side of a nose faintly hooked like the beak of a falcon. She had a well-worn look to her, the face of someone who had seen many things and was never short on stories to share. Her full lips stretched into a smile when she noticed the maid.

“Quite an impressive place he’s gotten himself, isn’t it?” she said cordially.

“I-I suppose it is,” Iris stuttered, startled by her colloquial tone. The maid’s head was tilted back, her eyes turned up. Dear god, this visitor was tall.

“It’s a wonder he managed to find such a mansion.” She looked up at the manor’s imposing facade. “And at the price he snatched it for, too.” Suddenly, she turned to Iris. “Tell me the truth. This place is falling apart on the inside, isn’t it?”

“Um...” Iris wasn’t sure how to answer. She didn’t want to insult one of her workplaces. It doesn’t reflect well on the company, Miriam had told her. “I-It’s holding together well enough, I suppose.”

“You certainly do like to suppose things,” the woman said. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Iris,” she replied automatically, although she didn’t see why it should matter.

“That’s a lovely name. Mine is Johona.”

“Would you like me to carry your bags for you?”

“That would be a great help, if you please.” Johona held out one of her suitcases. Iris took it, then moved to pick up the largest one, but Johona beat her to it. “I’ve been traveling all day. I’ll be glad to be staying in one place for a while.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay here.”

The conversation seemed to end there, and the air between the two of them stayed quiet as they walked the rest of the way into the foyer, Iris holding one suitcase, Johona holding the second, and the third being shared between them. Once inside, with the suitcases resting on the freshly swept floor, Johona asked, “Peter didn’t tell you that I was coming, did he?”

Iris shook her head.

“Did he ever talk about me?”

“I-I’m afraid not,” Iris began. “Then again, I’m only a maid. I don’t know why Mr. Walter would talk to me of all people about-”

“It figures,” Johona sighed. “I’d reckon he hasn’t been talking to anyone about anything very much.”

“He does keep to himself most of the time.”

“Oh, believe me, I know he does.” Johona looked off into the distance for a second, then back to Iris. “Speaking of the devil, would there happen to be anything you can tell me about his condition?”

“His what?”

“He sounded very insistent in the last telegram that he sent me. Told me he was ill, asked me to bring along whatever medical equipment I had. Since you work for him, I’d venture that you see him on a regular basis.”

“Miriam, the other maids and I work here in the mornings every other day.”

“Do you know anything, then?”

Iris thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure how much she should tell. She had known for a long time that her employer wasn’t well, but out of fear of seeming too intrusive, she had stayed quiet. It was only a few days ago that he had willingly told her he was sick. The other girls had been making all sorts of assumptions about him: that he had picked up drinking again, that he’d contracted an unknown illness of some kind, even that he’d become sick simply from spending so much time alone. Iris had never joined in, but now she almost wished that she had, if only to have more she could say about him. “I barely even knew that he was sick. He doesn’t speak with the staff about personal things very often.”

“Oh. That’s disappointing.” Johona pursed her lips together, then relaxed again. “Since he’s apparently never spoken about me, I’ll go ahead and speculate that you have no idea who I am.”

Again, Iris shook her head, unsure of what to say.

“Well, has Peter ever told you about the Cavalcadium?”

“Johona!” a voice called out from the top of the stairs before Iris could answer.

Iris spun around to face the stairs. Peter had finally emerged from his study. He stood at the second floor landing, leaned against the banister, a wide grin on his face the likes of which Iris had never seen before.

“Hello, stranger!” Johona shouted back to him. “I came all this way to see you, and you still somehow managed to elude me!”

Peter rounded the corner of the landing and sped down the stairs like an excited child on Christmas morning. Johona rushed at him the second his foot hit the ground floor, crashing into him and sweeping him into her arms. Iris watched Peter return the embrace, his eyes closed, a smile lighting up his face. It made her feel hollow. She wondered, momentarily, who Johona was. What had she been about to tell her before Peter had cut in?

Johona separated herself from Peter, smiling, then punched him in the arm not a second after it was over. “You owe me the world’s biggest explanation, Walter. Where have you been all this time?”

“Sometimes _I’m_ not even sure where I am, Johona. Things have been complicated, and I’ve been so busy lately that I...” His gaze slipped past Johona, and he finally noticed Iris, still standing patiently at the door. “I’m sorry. I haven’t properly introduced you, have I?” He draped an arm over his guest’s shoulders. “This is Johona. She’s an old friend of mine. We used to study together. She’s a biologist. Works as...” He glanced questioningly at her.

“A nurse,” she finished for him.

Peter’s eyebrows knitted together. “What? Still?”

Johona shrugged.

“I thought that they would have promoted you by now.”

“Have you even met me, Peter?” Johona snipped. “It’s not exactly a walk in the park to reach a higher position in my field.”

“You’re right. You’re right. My apologies,” Peter exasperatedly replied. Johona folded her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t expecting you to come in so early. I would have told you about the maid staff.”

“Maybe you should have checked the train schedule.”

“Oh well. It’s no matter now. I’ll put on some tea. The maids won’t be here much longer. Iris, would you mind showing Johona upstairs?”

“Of course, Mr. Walter.”

Peter disappeared into the kitchen, and Iris went back to carrying the guest’s bags to the second floor. Johona said that she could manage on her own from that point onward. Iris still lingered after her as she went from room to room, trying to choose her favorite from the many that the manor had to offer. All the while, questions swirled like a tempest in Iris’s mind, and eventually she couldn’t help herself.

“You said you’re a friend of Mr. Walter’s, right?”

“Yes,” Johona replied, looking at the window seat in the witch’s tower. “Seems so unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“A bit,” Iris admitted. “Have you known each other for a long time?”

“Longer than I’d sometimes care to admit.”

“And you were only ever friends?”

Johona looked at Iris over her shoulder, a sly expression on her face. “I meant what I said.”

“You mean to tell me you were never...”

At that, Johona burst out laughing. “With _Peter_ ? Oh, god, no. He’s never shown any interest in me. Not _that_ kind, anyway. The only fascination I had with him was his work. Besides... All the years I knew him, he was chasing after Delilah.” Her laughter faded fast, leaving only a trace of a smile behind. “It’s a shame how it all ended for her. She was a friend of mine, too.” Suddenly, she turned around and approached Iris. “Did he tell you about her, at the very least?”

“I recognize the name, but...” Iris said, but trailed off and eventually shook her head. The action felt almost like admitting a defeat of some kind. She’d heard the name Delilah, maybe once in the three years she’d spent working for Mr. Walter, and she had never found out whose it was. She must have been important, though, if both he and Johona found her worth mentioning.

“Oh.” Johona seemed disappointed, but it was only for a moment. “I suppose that would be too much to expect of him, the way he is.”

She wandered back out into hallway, Iris trailing closely behind. She was about to start assisting Johona in moving her luggage into her room when Miriam called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Iris? Iris, dearie, we’re moving on.”

Iris glanced at the open front door, then at Johona. “I have to leave.”

Johona nodded her understanding and smiled at the maid one last time. “Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, Iris.”

She followed Iris to the ground floor, where Peter had returned to the foyer and was speaking with Miram, giving her a few parting remarks.The head maid seemed concerned, and for good reason, judging by what Johona had said and what Iris had seen for herself. Peter glanced over at her, and Miriam turned in the same direction. “Ah, there y'are, Iris. Come along, now.” She glanced back at Peter. “Remember,” she said quietly, “That offer still stands, should ye ever need it.”

“I’ll remember, Miriam. Don’t worry. And tell your girls not to worry, either.” He looked to Iris and gave her a small wave. “I’ll see you in a day, Iris.”

Iris waved back, the movement shy and uncoordinated. Her face felt hot as she crossed the threshold of the house, and she glanced back at him on impulse. Miriam followed closely behind and passed her on the front porch. Iris forced herself to keep walking. The rest of the maids had already gathered in the back of the polished black wagon that served as the main mode of transport for Miriam’s housekeeping company. She heard the door swing shut behind her, effectively cutting her off from the goings-on inside the house. She looked back, suddenly wishing she had stayed behind, just to know more about what was going on in her employer’s life. It wasn’t only Johona’s questions that had spurred it. There had been many things Iris had wanted to know for a long, long time.

“Iris, you’ll make us late. Come on!”

Iris turned back to the wagon and quickened her pace. Still, her steps slowed once again when she was halfway across the yard, and she glanced back at the door one last time. Whatever was happening behind it, it didn’t concern her. She was only a maid to him, after all.

* * *

The kettle had just started to steam. Peter lifted it from its flame and placed it on the stone countertop.

“I’ll admit, Walter, you gave me quite the scare when you sent me that message out of the blue,” Johona said, leaning back against the cabinets.

“I know,” Peter resignedly replied. “Suppose that was my intention, if you look at it that way.”

“You should know that I’m expecting a full explanation for all of this. I mean, what am I supposed to think? I don’t hear a single word from you for ages, and the first thing you send me is a cry for help.”

“First of all, I feel like calling it a _cry for help_ is a bit dramatic. I was simply requesting a visit, and I felt it necessary to obviate how urgent it was.” He took two teacups out from the cabinet overhead and set them down. “Secondly, I haven’t been able to keep in good contact with anyone from the Cavalcadium. It isn’t just you who hasn’t heard from me.”

“It makes no difference if you were singling me out, or if you had sealed yourself away from the entire world,” Johona said indignantly. She pushed off from the counter and followed Peter to the pantry. “You have a lot of explaining to do, now that you’ve dragged me across a state and a half to reach you.”

“You received my last telegram before you left?” Peter asked unpromptedly. Johona sighed and took the small, folded of paper out from a pocket hidden in the pleats of her skirt. She smoothed out the pale yellow slip and showed him the typewritten message on the other side.

**Thank you STOP I cannot express my appreciation STOP I will await your arrival on the 17th STOP To explain matters I seem to have fallen inexplicably ill STOP None of the doctors I have seen have been able to treat me STOP If any of your medical equipment is your own please bring it with you STOP I have no way of knowing what you may need STOP**

“Good,” he said, then turned back to the pantry. “Do you prefer green or black?”

“I usually take herbal, but green is fine. And would you please stop dodging my questions?”

Peter turned around to face her and found that she had her arms folded across her chest, her face hardened with determination. He lifted the jar of tea leaves from the shelf. “I’ll tell you everything that I can. Just not here. This will take a long time to explain, and I believe this conversation will go over better if you’re sitting down.”

Johona agreed and waited patiently while Peter steeped their tea and made small talk, asking her questions about her own life. Times hadn’t been very interesting, as of late. Her job in nursing was monotonous at times, and the patients could be irritating, but her work wasn’t any less enjoyable than what she’d expected when she applied for it. The tea took only a few minutes to finish, and Peter moved their conversation to the parlor.

“Alright,” Johona said, smoothing her skirt over her crossed knees. “I’m sitting. You’re sitting. We have tea, and I’ve been ready to listen to whatever you have to say since the moment I stepped through the door. Do you feel like you can explain yourself yet?”

Peter took a breath and a sip of tea before he began. “Yes. Or... I think so. I’ll do the best I can.”

“I’m listening.”

“Right. Well... You know that I’ve been sick... _violently_ sick... for quite some time now.”

As soon as he said it, a look of concern crossed Johona’s face. “How violently?”

“I was thinking that persistent nausea, vomiting and spells of dizziness are about enough to merit being called violent.”

“How long has this been going on for?”

Peter stared into his tea and shrugged. “I can’t be sure. Several weeks. A month. Maybe more. I’ve been losing track, to be honest.”

“Try starting at the beginning. When did you first start feeling this way?”

“It seems so long ago. It must have been some point back in April. Maybe the first few days, even. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now, though.”

“How did it start?”

“Subtlely, if anything. Just some mild nausea, maybe a few occasional headaches. I wasn’t too concerned, but then it began to get worse, and _very_ quickly-”

“Please tell me you saw a doctor at some point in the middle of all this.”

“I _did_ , Johona. I told you in the telegram. In fact, I saw several. Every physician in the San Diego area.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“None of them were able to help me. They always had a diagnosis of some kind, prescribed me some medicine or another, but nothing ever helped. The symptoms just kept getting worse.”

“Peter, if none of the doctors in this city were able to help you, what makes you think that I can?”

“That’s what I’m getting to.” Peter shifted in his seat and took another sip of tea, licking nervously at his lip as he did. “It... gets stranger after that, if you would believe it.”

Johona leaned forward in her chair, balancing her cup in her hands. “Go on.”

“Well... after all of this, I’d stopped seeking treatment, since it was apparent that no one could help me. I just waited, seeing how it would pan out, and the symptoms continued to worsen. Then, just a little over a week ago, I noticed...” He paused for a second and put his tea down on the table beside them. “I’ve been gaining weight.”

Johona raised an eyebrow. “Gaining weight?” she incredulously remarked. “But if you’ve been having trouble keeping food down all this time, you shouldn’t be-”

“I know. That’s exactly what I thought.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve been taking measurements. I can show you the data, if you want to see it.”

“I’ll pass, for now,” Johona said with a shake of her head. “I want to hear the rest of this story first.”

“Well.” Peter had to take a moment to breathe before he could continue. “As I was saying, I’ve... I’ve been gaining weight, and that didn’t seem right, in conjunction with everything else. So I began looking into it with the resources I have, and...”

All of a sudden, he stopped. Silence hung in the air between Johona and him. His guest gazed expectantly at him, once again waiting for an answer. “And?” she prompted.

“And I...” Peter stammered. “A-and... I... I have reason to believe that...”

His hands were shaking. His pallid face seemed to grow even paler. Johona’s impatience quickly melted into worry. “Peter, are you alright?”

“Y-yes, I am, I just... I’ve never said this out loud before, and it’s going to sound so ridiculous when I do.”

“Just say it. Whatever happens afterward doesn’t matter.”

“Alright. Okay.” Peter inhaled slowly. “Based on my symptoms, and the research that I’ve done... I have reason to believe I might be... gestating something.”

“Gestating something?” Johona repeated. “Something as in what? A parasite? A bacterial infection?”

“No, nothing like that. I mean... _growing_ something. Something living.”

“Peter, you’re really not helping.”

“Alright, fine. You’ve twisted my arm. I’ll say it. _Pregnant_.” His throat felt dry as he stared into Johona’s eyes, fingers clutching the edge of his chair. “I’ve started to think I might be pregnant.”

The room fell totally silent. Johona stared at Peter, her face blank, eyes wide, hands frozen around her teacup like those of a wax statue. Peter gazed back at her, looking for some trace of a reaction. He heard his pulse throbbing in his ears. The tension was enough to make his stomach turn all over again.

After what felt like an eternity, Johona finally fell out of her trance. Slowly, calmly, she placed her teacup on the table. “Peter, I don’t think I’m the kind of doctor that you need.”

His eyes didn’t leave her for a second. His limbs began to shiver. “You think I’ve lost my mind, don’t you?”

Johona gently shook her head. “No, no. Why would I ever- _Yes!_ Of course I think you’ve lost your mind!” she cried, her voice pitching up into a shout. “That’s physically impossible, Peter! Even _you_ should know that much. You might not be a biologist, but this is _basic anatomical knowledge_!”

“I know! I know how it sounds. But please, Johona, hear me out,” he pleaded, trying to speak over her. “Just this once.”

“What more is there to hear?”

“Nothing that I can share, at this point. I’ve already told you all I know.”

“If you have nothing more to say, then what reason should I have to believe you? Men can’t bear children. It’s a simple medical fact.”

“But what if my case is different?” Peter inquired. He was beginning to grow desperate. Johona couldn’t leave now. She couldn’t leave him to face whatever this was on his own. “What if _I’m_ different? Isn’t there a way you could find out? Couldn’t you examine me, or perform some test on me, or _something_?”

She still didn’t seem convinced.

“I’m not asking you to prove I’m right, Johona. I just need to know whether or not this is a possibility.”

Johona studied him for a second, then sighed, letting her eyes drift to the floor. “I suppose I could perform a basic exam on you, just to be sure.”

Peter could have melted with relief. She’d agreed to help him.

“I’m not sure you know what you’re asking me to do, though,” she added a second later.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, normally, when _women_ come in with these sorts of concerns,” she explained, emphasizing her doubts, “they’re usually given a full-body examination.”

“So I’ll have to take my clothes off? That’s not a problem for me.”

“It might not be for a stranger, but this is _me_ , Peter. And I wouldn’t say that our relationship is exactly professional. I don’t want this to be awkward for you.”

“I already said I don’t mind. But if it would make _you_ uncomfortable, I can understand.”

Johona sighed in exasperation. “Peter, I work as a nurse. I’ve seen things a lot more disturbing than your scrawny carcass without clothes on.”

Peter nearly choked on his tea. “My what?”

“If you want to proceed, I’ll start by asking you a few questions,” Johona continued, not missing a beat. “First of all, I’ll need to know one thing. Have you been sexually active recently?”

He considered the question for a while. “How recent is recently?”

“Anytime within the past few months would be fitting, based on what you’re asking me to find out.”

“The last time was...” Peter thought back to it. He couldn’t place the exact day. In fact, he’d done all he could to erase it from his memory. “Around the end of March, I think. It wasn’t very long before I started to get sick, actually.”

“Interesting,” Johona said through a sip of tea. “And in the time surrounding, how active would you say you were?”

“Active enough.” He paused and rethought his answer. “Very active. Too active. Almost embarrassingly so.” He spat the answer out quickly, just to get it out of the way.

Johona raised her eyebrows at him. “My. This is unexpected.”

Peter sighed and put a hand to his forehead. “I was trying to cope, alright? It... It couldn’t be helped.”

“How many people was it?”

“Do you think I’ve been keeping a tally or something?”

The biologist shook her head, smirking faintly, before she continued. “Were there any contraceptives used in these encounters? Protections of any kind?”

“Yes. In every one that I can remember, anyway. My judgement might have been bad, but I’m not nearly that stupid.”

“And all of these encounters, they were with women, correct?”

“Yes,” Peter replied automatically. But as soon as the word had slipped out, his face paled and his palms began to sweat. Johona studied him with her piercing gaze. He couldn’t lie to her. “Well, most of them were.”

“Most of them?”

“There was... “ Peter stopped short. He swallowed convulsively, breathed for a moment and had to force the words out one by one. “There was one. One who wasn’t.”

“And who was it, if you wouldn’t mind telling me?”

The memory had started to surface in the back of Peter’s mind, one that he had tried so hard to keep stowed away where he would never have to see it. No matter how much he lied to himself, he knew what he had done. The mere thought of it made him sick. He looked to Johona, her patient gaze, waiting to hear his answer. If he wanted her help, she’d have to know. She deserved to know.

“I-it was...” Peter stammered unsteadily, trying to make himself admit it. “I’m sorry. Th-this is just... so difficult to say.”

“It’s alright,” Johona said softly. “Take your time.”

Peter’s heart was pounding again, his breath turning shallow and heavy. He dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to stop the uncontrollable shaking in his hands. He couldn’t give in to his nerves now. He’d let Johona know this much, and there was no turning back, no matter what she would think of him after she heard the truth.

“A man,” he murmured, almost too quietly for her to hear. “There was a man.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT A TWIST.  
> I BET NO ONE SAW THAT ONE COMING.  
> Anyway, that's the second chapter. You're probably even more confused now than you were at the beginning. Well I'm here to advise you to get used to that feeling. It's going to get a lot worse.  
> Again, I want to point out that this story is not meant to be transphobic or homophobic or racist or anything like that. It's also not supposed to be taken as a social commentary. Johona just happens to be a really smart-mouthed and self-aware character.  
> Speaking of Johona, I hope you liked her. She's going to be kind of important.  
> See you next chapter.


	3. Things Better Left Forgotten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHAT? IT'S A PORN CHAPTER.  
> Or not so much a porn chapter as heavily implied porn with some erotic content? Light porn? Porn gentrified for a more refined audience? I don't know what it's supposed to be called, but apparently it's all I'm capable of writing. I made up a term for it, because actual porn use to be referred to as "lemon." Because this chapter has just a smattering of erotica, I'll call it "lemon zest." You just have that nice flavor of the porn without the more graphic bits.  
> I've tried to write smut before. I honestly have, and I can just never reach that level of hardcoreness that is accessible to most others. My words just end up way too pretty.  
> Anyway  
> Here's a third chapter. I'm shoving a smut warning into the author's note, because that's never a bad thing to mention. This chapter is also supposed to be period-accurate, NOT homophobic. Also I'm adding another OC because fuck canon, I am moving my own plot forward like the asshat I am. Again, nothing is canon. Believe not a word. Take nothing seriously.  
> Now get out of my fucking face and read my shit.

 

The story wasn’t easy for Peter to tell. It wasn’t easy for him to even recall. Every detail of that night brought with it a lifetime’s worth of shame. Peter had been trying his hardest to forget what had happened, but he hadn’t been trying long enough to erase it completely. And maybe it was better this way. If he could still dredge up the events of that night, maybe Johona would be able to help him. Maybe. But before any of that could happen, he would have to come clean about what he’d done.

To put it plainly, he’d slept with a man. There was no hope of sugarcoating it.

The whole story was far more complicated, Peter liked to think. There were all sorts of factors involved, a specific sequence of events that, had even a single one of them changed, that disastrous night would have never taken place. That was how he liked to think of it, anyway.

The truth was that he’d been drunk. Incredibly drunk. And in light of recent events, that was barely an excuse for him. 

There was a hotel on the western edge of central San Diego called the Hyperion. It was a small place, but its amenities were impressive for something its size. The bar in the basement, a speakeasy sort of place called the Tarnished Crown, was especially popular with its patrons. The Tarnished Crown had a polished oak interior, cut-glass chandeliers, seating almost in excess, always an eclectic cast of characters present and an overstocked liquor cellar behind the bottles displayed on the shelf at the bar. 

It was one of the places that Peter had frequented most. He liked the well-kept but casual atmosphere. He especially liked how the bartenders were friendly but didn’t ask too many questions.

“Allo, Peter,” a lively young man behind the counter greeted him as he walked in. “Coming in a bit late today.”

“I didn’t realize the staff was keeping me on a schedule,” Peter replied. He never quite managed to remember the young bartender’s name, but the boy seemed to know him like an old friend. “I was a bit tied up with work. I almost had a breakthrough, and I must have lost track of time.”

“Did you, now?” The boy appeared fascinated. “I know how it gets sometimes. You become engrossed, and the world just disappears around you. Good to have something that can interest you that much, though.”

Peter nodded mindlessly. “It really is.” 

He couldn’t hope to make the boy behind the bar understand the importance of what he’d been up to that day. He wished that there was someone he could tell. He’d managed to summon blue matter again, and this time, it had stayed. He’d held it in his hands for nearly five minutes. It was there, semi-solid, resting light and warm on his palms and writhing through his fingers, as if exploring his skin. He’d acted fast and went straight to his barely-constructed automaton, her core already situated in the middle of her unwelded ribs. He had opened the small enclosure of glass and steel and tried to usher the blue matter inside. But it seemed unwilling to leave his hand. 

It had taken what must have been hours to separate the substance from himself. Every drop he scraped away from his skin dissolved into thin air. Finally, he shut the hinges of the core on his own hand. The steel edges had met with his skin, and he’d pulled, squeezing the enclosure as hard as his nerves would let him. After scraping at his hand until it was raw, crushing his bones between the scallop-shell halves of the core, and losing drop after drop of blue matter, he finally managed to scrape some loose and seal the core shut.

The remaining blue matter that clung to his skin disappeared in seconds. He held the core in his blue, bleeding hand and gazed into the glass enclosure. As he did, his heart sank. Only a small amount had been salvaged. It sat like a fluorescent gem, molded to the edge of the core, and Peter could see that even inside the enclosure, it was slowly dissolving into its surroundings. He’d been close. So close, but he still had so much farther to go. There was still so much that he didn’t understand. And yet again, he had failed.

Then something miraculous had happened. The blue matter’s slow dissolution stopped. It had come as a surprise to Peter. Excited, he’d tried to connect the core to a small, simple machine that he had built just for this purpose, to test the capabilities of blue matter power. It didn’t work. The small, dimly glowing lump of blue didn’t make the gears move even a single click forward.

Needless to say, the day had been disappointing. Peter had been working for what felt like forever to get even this far. He didn’t want to wait another forever to finish what he had started. He didn’t have forever. If he wanted to rebuild Delilah, he had to...

Delilah.

There she was again, in his head, lingering around every corner like a ghost. And there was yet another thing that he couldn’t hope to make the boy behind the bar understand. He’d told him about her the first time that he had come into the Tarnished Crown. And he’d shown some interest and seemed to care. Or he pretended to, as he probably did with every lonely customer that passed through the door. Peter knew how bartenders were. They were only there to earn their wages, and conversation was more of a formality than anything else.

“What’ll it be, then?” the young man asked, just as cheerfully as ever.

“The usual round to start,” Peter told him. “I’ll see how it goes from that point on.”

“Are you starting a tab, sir?”

“May as well.”

The bartender set up two stout glasses on the tabletop and filled both with whiskey. Peter grasped the first and threw it back, hard and fast. The liquor burned as it went down, but it was a feeling he’d become used to. He balanced the second in his hand and nursed it slowly, turning around on the barstool to study the crowd in attendance that night. 

The people in the mood-lit space seemed friendly enough. There was a lot of laughter in front of him, an array of rosy, intoxicated and smiling faces. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see this, exactly. There was only a certain aspect to all the attendees that didn’t quite align with him. Togetherness. Nobody seemed to be there on their own. There was no interest in anyone’s meeting someone new. That was fine, though. He could wait.

Somewhere in the midst of his people-watching, his glass became empty. With a resigned sigh, Peter turned around and waited for the young bartender to notice his plight. He’d need to be a lot drunker than he was if he wanted to feel any better.

“Ey. Peter.”

The young man’s attention had been caught. He stood leaning on the bar, looking a little more eager than usual. “Another round?” Peter requested, sliding his two empty glasses together.

“Well, I could, if you’re willing to settle for that, but I actually had something a little different in mind.” A mischievous smile crossed the boy’s face. “If you happen to be in the mood for something stronger, that is.”

Now he had Peter’s attention. “Go on.”

The bartender looked around at the other patrons of the bar, as if searching for wandering ears, before he focused on Peter again. “The hotel just received a shipment of some new stuff. Imported from France. We’re offering to let our most loyal patrons give it a whirl before we start serving to the rest. Any interest?”

“You consider me loyal?” Peter mused.

“Of course we do!” the bartender replied. “You’ve shown your face around here almost every week.”

“Only recently,” he contested. It wasn’t entirely untrue, he supposed. He’d been coming here for however long it had been since the news of Delilah’s death had reached him. The boy had a point, in a certain sense. The Tarnished Crown was one of Peter’s favorites, out of all the other establishments with a liquor license in San Diego. He had been to quite a few of them, so many that he wasn’t quite sure he qualified as a  _ loyal patron _ . But at the point he had reached, he was willing to take whatever he could get.

“Well, as far as you and I are concerned, you and the ol’ Tarnished Crown are as good as old friends.”

“If you say so. Now, you were saying...” He leaned forward against the tabletop to meet the bartender’s gaze. “What was it you wanted to share with me?”

The young bartender grinned, then disappeared for a moment. He returned holding a decanter of cut glass filled two-thirds of the way with a bright green liquid the likes of which Peter had never seen before. He placed it on the bar with a flourish, as if he were proud to have obtained it.

“What in the name of...” Peter leaned in and studied the transparent green spirit. “What is it?”

“They call it  _ absinthe _ ,” the bartender explained. “That’s the label they gave us on the bottle, anyhow. We’ve served it to a few patrons before, and they’ve given it a few names of their own. Some people like to call it  _ the green fairy _ . I think that’s a charming one, personally.”

“The green fairy?” Peter wondered at the name. “It sounds interesting. But might I ask how much this is going to cost before I go through with it?”

“Customarily, it’s been that the first sample is on the house. And if you happen to enjoy it... it is a bit expensive to come by, so we can’t sell it cheap. I can promise you one thing, though. The dose might be small, but it is certainly effective.”

He took some time to think, but not very much. “If the first sample is on the house, I may as well.”

The bartender grinned. “An excellent choice, my friend.” He left the bar to fetch a bowl of sugar cubes and a pitcher of water from the shelves in the back. He returned shortly and placed a small, oddly-shaped glass on the bar in front of Peter, then balanced a flat, slotted spoon on the rim. The boy carefully lifted the absinthe decanter and poured just enough to fill the lower chamber of the glass, then placed a sugar cube atop the spoon and slowly poured water from the pitcher over it. The sugar dissolved into the liquor at the bottom, fizzled and turned opaque as the green fluid rose to the brim of the glass.

The young bartender pushed the glass towards Peter. “There you are, sir. Enjoy.”

“I’ll see if I do,” Peter snarkily replied. He lifted the glass from the table and brought it to his lips. The powerful smell of licorice and something else sweet and herbal drifted from the surface of the liquor, enveloping his senses like a cloud of steam. He tilted the glass back and tasted it. The liquor was bittersweet and stung a bit as it flowed over his tongue, but in a strangely pleasant way. He sipped it a bit more, then glanced around. Something about this felt illicit, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. 

As he worked slowly at the absinthe, he kept watching the guests. The ambiance hadn’t changed, but there were a few stragglers now where there had been none before. Maybe one of them was willing to talk, Peter speculated. That was what he really needed now, more than anything. Just someone to talk to. 

And that was how it always started. He was looking for someone to talk to. Some stranger would single him out, some bachelorette that hadn’t seen his face before, intrigued by his odd appearance or the detached, wistful look on his face, or even by the mere fact that he was drinking alone. Or he might approach her. It had gone both ways before. It always ended the same, though.

They started a conversation. Slowly he grew intoxicated as the night wore on. And then he would mention Delilah. It always came back to Delilah. She seemed to be the only thing that any of these nights had in common. Even while inebriated, she was still all he could think about.

The woman with him was always moved. So sad, they always said. So tragic, to leave such a well-meaning lovestruck man all alone in the world. Sometimes she cried a few tears of drunken pity for him, and he’d cry right along with her. Then there were more drinks, more things said and not remembered, and the next thing he knew, he’d be waking up half-dressed in an unrecognizable room next to some poor, unfortunate lady whose name and face he could barely remember.

Peter sighed as his eyes unfocused and left him staring blankly at the wall. It wasn’t the best way of coping with his feelings, but it was a way to live. And until he found something better, as cruel as this existence was, this was the way it would have to be.

Behind him at the bar, he heard the young man greeting a new customer. “Allo there, Er-nesto!”

Peter glanced sideways to see that a new patron had arrived. He was sitting two empty barstools away, alone, an unenthused expression on his face. “Evening, Louis,” he said in a low, husky voice.  _ So the bartender’s name is Louis _ , Peter took note as he listened.

“Tell me, m’friend, how goes life on the high seas?”

“It’s the same as ever,” the stranger named Er-nesto replied. “Only just returned from leave yesterday. Some trade ships on the Pacific needed defending, and we ran into a few more dilemmas than expected.”

“Oh my,” Louis said, trying to sound as interested as he could while polishing a glass. “Did it turn out well?”

“As well as it could. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here to tell you the story.”

“Mhmm.” Louis placed the glass down and leaned over the bar, just as he’d done with Peter. “Listen, Ernie, my good man,  I’ve some good news for you. You arrived just in time to see the latest and greatest of the Tarnished Crown.”

“Have I now?” Ernie smirked, and Peter could tell that it was forced. “Then it’s true? The staff’s managed to get a hold of the green fairy?”

Louis’s face broke out in a smile. “A-ha! Well-informed as always. Right you are, Ernie. Right you are.”

Without missing a beat, the man retrieved a bill from his pocket and set it down on the bar. “How much would this cover?”

“That’ll get you three, I reckon.”

Ernie breathed out heavily. “Pricey stuff.”

“What can I say? It’s imported,” Louis said with a shrug. “And not easy to come by on this side of the globe.”

“I should know,” Ernie said. Louis brought out another elaborate glass and went through the same complicated ritual as the one he’d performed to make Peter’s. Ernie picked up the glass while it was still fizzing and drank directly from the froth. Peter watched him intently as he squinted his eyes and wrinkled his nose to fend off stray bubbles that floated from the surface of  his drink and burst against his face. He sighed heavily as he placed the drink down again. Then, all of a sudden, he’d aligned his gaze with Peter’s. Ernie glanced at the drink in his hand. “So Louis managed to get you too, eh?”

Peter looked down at his glass and swirled the green liquor that remained. “Only because he told me the first glass would be free, really.”

“What’s your take on it?”

“Not bad. Probably an acquired taste, but my standards are low enough to accept just about anything I won’t have to pay for.”

“You wouldn’t want to let the staff catch you saying that,” Ernie advised him. “Especially since they were kind enough to give you one for free. Absinthe isn’t exactly moonshine. Stuff’s pretty costly, as liquors go, and the establishment probably thinks they’ll be able to make a pretty penny off of this stuff.”

“Oh. Well, I really don’t have the best control of my tongue at the moment.” Peter gave the stranger an empty smile and held out his glass. “I have been  _ drinking _ , after all.”

Ernie exhaled in something that sounded like a halfhearted parody of a laugh. “You came here looking for trouble, didn’t you?”

“What if I did?” Peter paused to take another burning sip. “What’s it to you?”

The stranger smirked again in the same superficial way he had before. “Don’t expect any from me. I’m honestly not the type who looks for quarrels in a bar.”

“Maybe that isn’t the type of trouble I’m referring to.”

Peter ripped his eyes away from the man’s and turned them to the opposite wall, refusing to look back. He couldn’t block out the sound of Ernie letting slip another sad attempt at laughing. “Let me guess. You’re here seeking short-term company for the evening. Is that it?”

Peter didn’t answer. He choked down another mouthful of absinthe.

“I’ve seen this setup before. You’re waiting for some unfortunate girl to turn up and strike your fancy. You reel her in with charm and a few drinks, maybe a story of some sort, and she spends the night with you. Might be out of pity, might be because she isn’t clear-headed enough to turn you down.”

Peter still refused to respond. He wouldn’t dignify it, even if he felt Ernie’s eyes boring holes into the side of his head.

“You use the story, don’t you?” he continued to pry. “You seem like that type. You’re honestly lonely, for whatever reason, and that is always what brings her into your net. Because deep down, she thinks, maybe, if she can work her magic on you well enough, she’ll be able to heal your broken heart. And maybe you believe it, too. Of course, I could always be wrong. You might not be broken at all. You could always just be a sly dog trying to score some floozy for himself.”

“Delilah,” Peter murmured.

Ernie was silent for a second. “What?”

“Nothing.” He went to take another sip of absinthe only to find that he’d already finished his drink. He turned around on his stool and gently placed the empty glass on the bar. “Tell me something. If you’re so familiar with this setup,” he asked after a moment, “where have you seen it before?”

“Look me in the eye and ask me that question again.”

Hesitantly, Peter did. He realized he’d never even bothered to take note of the man’s appearance. Ernie was tall, or seemed so from where Peter sat. He had short, unkempt chestnut-brown hair and an angular face, rough with stubble at the edges and set with a pair of teal eyes that had a perceptive, knowing look to them. His skin was scorched tan from raw sunlight, the remains of a mild sunburn cresting across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He was solidly built, looked to be in good physical condition, but there was something wretched about him all the same. He had the look of someone who had seen very much, or more accurately, had suffered and survived to tell the tale. And it wasn’t an unpleasant appearance in the least, Peter thought to himself as he studied the man. It might just have been the alcohol talking, but Ernie wasn’t at all unattractive.

“Well?” he said, still waiting for an answer.

“You weren’t wrong,” Peter replied. “Not at all. You could have been a little less bitter about stating it, though.”

“I should apologize for that. It’s a bit of a reflex.” Ernie drained the remainder of his absinthe and set the glass down. “I’ve been warned about it before.”

“By who?”

“Crewmates, mostly. They talk a lot about certain things I no longer have an interest in, and... it tires me, after having to hear it for so long. They get tired of listening to me gripe, though, so I’d wager we’re all even.”

“Hm. I’d say I understand, but I don’t.”

“Nobody like that in your life?”

“No. I spend most of my days on my own.”

“Ah, so you’re a recluse.”  _ Recluse is a harsh way to put it _ , Peter thought. “What is it that you do, exactly?”

“I’m a scientist. An inventor.” Peter paused and looked back at his glass before remembering that it was empty. “I’m trying to be, anyway.”

“Must be fascinating,” Ernie said. “I was never able to get into the field myself. I’ve always had an interest, just I was never intellectual enough. Or maybe I could’ve been, were I willing to sit through all the studying. The exploration, discovering things... That was always fascinating to me, though.”

“The bartender- Louis- he said you’d come back from a, er... an expedition of some kind?”

“Yeah. Latest assignment with me an’ the crew. There have been some problems with pirates roaming around the Barbary Islands between here and India, and we were sent out to keep some cargo safe.  More dangerous than we expected, though. Nearly lost the ship.”

“So you’re a sailor?”

“Yes. Been active with the Navy for near fifteen years.” Ernie glanced back behind the bar. “Speaking of that devil, Louis, where has that boy gotten to? Ay, Louis!” he called, and the young bartender appeared seemingly out of thin air.

“Another glass, Ernie?”

“I’ll take the next two at once, actually.”

Peter looked bewilderedly at Ernie for a minute, confused, wondering if the man planned on taking two drinks at once like he had with the glasses of whiskey. But when Louis finished setting up the two vivid, fizzling glasses of green, he slid one across the bar in Peter’s direction. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We were never properly introduced, were we?”

“I don’t believe we were,” Peter replied. “I take it your name is... Ernie? Or is it Ernesto?”

“Just Ernest, actually,” the sailor corrected him. “Ernest Rantanen.”

“Do people call you Ernie?”

“Please don’t. Only Louis does, and I’ve stopped trying to correct him. I can’t stand the sound of it.”

“Alright, then. Ernest it is.” Peter lifted his glass from the bartop. “My name is Peter.”

“Is there a nickname for that?”

“Not one that anyone has used. So that makes me just Peter. Peter Walter, to be exact.”

Ernest smiled. “Walter. That’s nice. Something people can pronounce.”

“Rantanen isn’t that hard to pronounce.”

“Say that again after another few drinks.” 

Ernest lifted his glass as well and held it out toward Peter. Peter responded accordingly, lifting his own to tap the side of the other. Before he could get that far, he paused. “What are we toasting to?”

Ernest shrugged. “Does it even matter?”

The two of them laughed, genuinely this time, as their glasses clinked together.

* * *

An absinthe later, Ernest and Peter were gone from the bar, moved to a booth around a corner at the far end of the Tarnished Crown. The atmosphere was warmer there, and a little more secluded. It was the sort of place that Peter liked to be in these situations. He’d been to the table before, and others like it that he knew at other bars he’d been to. Corner booths felt almost like hiding places to him.

Peter was willing to admit that when he’d said he had come to the Tarnished Crown seeking company, he’d fully intended to do what Ernest had described. He’d failed to follow through with that plan, but he wasn’t upset about it. Ernest wasn’t exactly what he was looking for, but he would do. He would do nicely.

The absinthe had kicked in fast. As small as their glasses were, both Ernest and Peter were under the green fairy’s spell within minutes. A warm, dizzying fire was kindling in Peter’s chest, the same one that always blazed up from the embers when he was drunk. But there wasn’t just that anymore. The fire might have been the whiskey. He’d never tasted absinthe before. Louis had told him that it was strong, but he wasn’t expecting  _ this _ . He felt as though his head were floating above his shoulders. The colors in the wallpaper were starting to blur together, and the other people that crowded into the Tarnished Crown seemed to merge into one loud, flesh-toned sea of drunken merriment. Their noise faded into the background, like wind or running water, sounding almost like a faint song in his ears.

Peter bought Ernest a glass of scotch to pay him back for the absinthe. He was sure it wasn’t sufficient, but the sailor wouldn’t take anything more from him. A drink for a drink, he said. Then that drink led to more drinks, as it usually did. Peter asked him where he had taken a liking to absinthe. France, Ernest said. And then the story began, of how he had been on military leave to visit some allies, and some Frenchman friends of his had given him his first taste. The substance hit hard and fast, he said, and isn’t that the only reason anyone drinks at all? And at the end, Peter asked for another story.

Ernest went on, talking about his travels with the Navy. Peter had been right when he first saw him. He knew a lot, all because he had seen and been through as much. He talked avidly about the social customs of China, the mythology of Greece, the frightening wildlife in Australia and the great survivalists of the Congo. All the while, Peter leaned his head on his arm, gazed at Ernest’s face and listened, rapt with fascination. Soon he was telling stories of his own, though his seemed like nothing in comparison. Strange things that had gone on at the Cavalcadium in the years beforehand, mostly; the odd projects they conducted, local legends of witchcraft and alchemy that he knew to be true, and the day he came back to the building only to find a gaping hole in the earth where the huge Grecian structure had once stood. He talked about the day’s failure, his inability to capture and harness the elusive blue matter, and Ernest hung onto his every word, expressing a degree of sincere sympathy that Louis hadn’t even managed to properly imitate. In searching his memories for another story, he somehow came across the time his old friend Thaddeus Becile had brought his partially-finished mechanical elephant into the Cavalcadium with its new, far-from-complete phonograph attachment and the ensuing demonstration that tore up the meeting hall. All of it because they both wanted so much to...

All of a sudden, he found himself unable to continue.

“What is it?” Ernest asked, sounding drowsy, although Peter saw that his eyes were wide open. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes... I mean... N-no, I...” Peter stuttered. He couldn’t seem to get his thoughts in order. Only a moment ago, he’d been tell thing the story about Becile’s copper elephant, and the next...

“What did he do it for?” Ernest leaned toward the corner, against the table, drawing carefully closer to Peter with a look of genuine concern written into his face. “You said that was the funniest part of it.” He waited for an answer, but none came. “Is it not really that funny after all?”

“Not anymore.” The words came out as though he were admitting defeat.

“Why not? The story itself can’t change, so what did?”

“It was...” 

Peter felt sick all of a sudden. For the first time that night, he thought, maybe, that he’d had too much to drink. He leaned forward onto the table, balancing his head in his hands and pulling at his hair with his fingers. He sighed heavily, trying to find a way to explain. 

“I-it was...”

He’d done it before, far more times than was healthy. He had thought that maybe, for just a few hours, he could forget about her. But it wasn’t possible. She was always there, lurking in the back of his mind, just waiting to resurface.

“It was because of a girl. He’d made that monstrosity because of a girl. We were fighting... over a girl.”

Ernest gazed at him, hazy-eyed but with an unmistakable look of understanding. “That name you said before we started talking.”

“What name?” Peter could barely remember.

“You said a name. I asked you what it was, and you said it was nothing.”

“I didn’t know you were listening.”

“I was. You said Delilah. And then you told me you said nothing.”

A cold feeling settled into the chambers of Peter’s heart. Had he really let it all slip so easily? “Yes, I... I did say it. I said Delilah. That was her name. Delilah.”

“Oh.” Ernest nodded slowly and carefully studied Peter’s appearance, as if seeing him for the first time all over again. “You were here seeking company, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“And you’ve done it before?”

“I have.”

“Is she the story you tell to reel them in?”

Peter’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t make himself say it. He couldn’t. Knowing he had used his grief that way... that he had used  _ Delilah  _ like that...

“You lost her somehow, didn’t you?”

Ernest’s eyes were begging him for an answer, but he couldn’t give one. He was too busy choking down his guilt. The room was starting to spin around him. Suddenly everything was too loud, the lights too bright even lowered as they were. His head was pounding, and he just wanted to crawl into himself and die there.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But if it’ll make you feel any better, I can tell you my own tale of woe first. If you’d like to listen.”

The suggestion was a saving grace to Peter’s existence. He was listening again. As long as he didn’t have to speak, maybe he would eventually start to regain his composure.

“I’d love to listen,” he said softly.

“Really?” Ernest seemed surprised. “I’m so used to the crew telling me to can it, I... I didn’t think you...” He trailed off for a second before he came back. “W-wait, that’s not what you asked to hear. What it really is... what I need to tell you is...” He sighed and started over. “Her name was Margaret. I knew her for three years, and I’d been trying to court her for the last two. After a year and a half, she finally felt she could accept my proposal to her. And we were engaged, for a while. I didn’t have enough money to host a respectable wedding, or to get a decently-sized house for us to live in, so... she agreed to wait for me. She was willing to wait until I could give her what she really wanted.”

“And what did she really want?” Peter asked innocently.

“Hell if I know,” Ernest said bitterly. “Regardless, I never could manage to properly marry her. Then I was called out to sea for Navy duties, to assist with negotiations of a trade treaty in China and to defend some unarmed ships... the captain told us that we’d be out for over three weeks, maybe a month if things ran slowly. By the time the campaign was over, I would receive my compensation and finally have enough to keep Margaret. But... but things didn’t quite work out that way.”

“What happened?”

“To be honest, I can’t really recall. The negotiations were going just swimmingly, but then... all of a sudden, riots began to break out. I never quite understood what had started them. Something about conflicts with Russian presence, political problems, the government being unable to get the issue under control... We ended up stuck overseas for almost a year. And all that time, I worried about Margaret. I missed her. I feared never seeing her again, never being able to come home and give her everything I’d had to withhold for so long, dying overseas and leaving her not able to even call herself a widow...”

Ernest paused and broke eye contact with Peter, choosing instead to stare at the empty glass he had pushed to the edge of the table. Peter stared at it too, as if it might hold the rest of Ernest’s story. After a silent minute, he looked back at Ernest. A glazed look had come over his eyes, and he seemed to be able to see something in the glass that was invisible to Peter. Carefully, slowly, Peter edged his hand across the table. His fingertips brushed against Ernest’s arm. Suddenly the sailor had snapped out of his trance, and his eyes had focused on Peter again. “I-I’m sorry,” he said. “I... seem to have lost my place.”

“Well, you obviously came back from being overseas,” Peter prompted.

“Oh. Right.” Ernest paused again and sighed. “This part is always the hardest to tell.” It took him a few seconds to collect himself enough to continue. “When I finally returned, after being gone for all of that time, I... I was waiting to see Margaret again, to tell her how much I had missed her and that we could finally have everything that we’d ever wanted, or that  _ I _ had ever wanted, but when I came back to the place she used to live... It wasn’t Margaret that answered the door. It was some other girl. I asked about Margaret, and she told me that she’d sold the apartment because she lived with her husband now... And I asked what she meant by that... And as it turned out, someone else had stepped in while I was gone and married Margaret for me.”

The booth fell silent as soon as the words were out in the air between them. The background hum of the bar surged onward in Peter’s peripheral, significant only because there was no other sound. The ice in his heart had started to melt. “Ernest,” he murmured. “Oh, Ernest. I... I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Ernest dismissively replied, although his face betrayed his words in every possible way. “It was so long ago... I feel I should have moved on by now.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I wish I could.” He focused his hazy eyes on Peter. “What about your story? Your Delilah?”

_ Your Delilah _ . The way he said it froze Peter all over again. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about it. How wrong it all was, but at the same time, how he had wished for it so desperately.

“Dead.” The word still felt strange in his mouth, despite all the times he’d forced himself to say it. “Some illness no one could cure. Radiation poisoning, maybe, but no one really knows.”

“Oh, no,” Ernest murmured in disbelief, but Peter barely heard him.

“And she was never  _ my Delilah _ . She was gone before I could ever tell her how I felt.”

“Peter?” Ernest’s voice sounded distant in Peter’s head, and he didn’t have a response to give him, but he still couldn’t ignore the sound of it.

“I want you to listen to me.” The words echoed in his head, and there was something oddly comforting about them. Ernest’s voice might have been the only thing that tethered him to reality.

“At least you know it wasn’t your fault you lost her.”

Peter was dragged abruptly back to the present. “W-what?”

“What happened to Delilah... if was out of your control. You couldn’t have changed it. No matter what you did, she still might have... She wasn’t like Margaret.”

“Ernest, what are you saying?”

“If... if I hadn’t left her... If I hadn’t kept her waiting so long... I should have just married her while I had the chance...”

“She  _ abandoned  _ you, Ernest.”

“But if I hadn’t-”

“Shush.” Peter reached over the table and put a finger over Ernest’s lips. He fell instantly silent, his chapped mouth still quivering with the urge to lay more blame on himself. “It isn’t your fault,” Peter said as he drew his hand away and placed it back on the table.

“But I-”

“It’s not your fault.” 

His fingers inched slowly across the tabletop towards where Ernest’s right hand rested.

“If I hadn’t-”

“Not your fault.”

Peter’s hand had overlapped Ernest’s now.

“But-”

In one quick movement, Peter swept up Ernest’s callused hand and held it between his own. He held it up in front of Ernest’s face, where he could see it. The man shut his mouth straightaway. His eyes went first to their intertwined hands, then to Peter’s face. Their gazes locked together. Peter spoke again, slowly and affirmatively.

“Not. Your. Fault.”

The world itself seemed to slow for an instant, and in that small window of time, it was just the two of them, pressed close in a corner booth, eyes locked, hands twined with one another. Peter’s heart skipped. He knew exactly what was happening, or he thought he did. Either way he was too drunk to care. 

Then the window disappeared. Ernest glanced out at the roiling crowd that had started to disperse. “We should leave,” he said.

Peter abruptly let go of him. “Y-yes. God only knows what time it is.”

Getting out of the booth was a challenge all its own, then fording through the people still packed like sardines into the bar, though they weren’t nearly as sardined as before. The air outside was cold, far colder than Peter had been expecting. He shivered involuntarily, and a second later, he felt an arm drape across his shoulder. It was warm, and he appreciated it. He hadn’t been hoping to go home that night, but he’d had Ernest, at least for a little while. And that was something. 

Cabs were sparse at this time of night, so getting home took a lot of wandering. Ernest didn’t leave Peter’s side, keeping close to him. He seemed just as content as Peter to stumble drunkenly along in the chilly streets with a friend. He felt he could call Ernest that now. His friend. He wondered how the man would feel about that.

Not a second after the thought crossed his mind, Ernest’s steps faltered. His arm shot out to steady himself against the solid brick wall of a nearby shop. He stopped, leaned against the wall for a minute, and Peter watched him. Then he wasn’t watching. He was moving closer. Ernest leaned back against the wall, breathing unsteadily. Peter could still smell absinthe in the air around him. He came closer still, enough for the faint warmth of Ernest’s breath to brush against his face. He put a hand to the sailor’s chest and pushed him back against the wall.

_ I shouldn’t _ , a voice whispered in the back of his head.

Then another one, stronger.  _ But this is what I was asking for, isn’t it? _

Ernest stared at Peter, his eyes wide and hazy, struggling to stay focused. It happened slowly, but the same understanding that Peter had seen in them before began to sink in. The distance between them lessened with each passing second. He was close enough to taste the remains of liquor on Ernest’s breath. Still, he didn’t dare move any further. Then he felt a hand at his waist, and every last notion of hesitation disappeared from his mind. His eyes fell shut and with a blind, intoxicated movement, his lips collided with Ernest’s.

It wasn’t like any kiss he’d had before. Ernest wasn’t soft or flowery like a woman. He had no makeup or perfume. He wasn’t sugarcoated. His mouth was chapped, and his stubble scratched at Peter’s face, and it only made him want more. He opened his mouth, kissing him more deeply. Ernest tasted like rum, like salt and and sunlight and the atmosphere of a whole foreign world that Peter had never seen. 

Ernest’s hands slid up his back, pulling him closer, pressing Peter’s mouth harder against his own. Peter fought back, kissing Ernest with unholy fervor, as if this had all turned into a competition of some kind. All of a sudden, the sailor’s grip on his hips had tightened, and Peter was spun around and thrown back against the wall. Ernest didn’t stop, not for a second, his passion only growing stronger. Peter’s hands dug into his hair, tangling up in the windblown, saltwater-stiffened mess and dragging the man attached to it closer, biting his lips, trying to taste him more. Ernest’s mouth disappeared from his own and moved down to his neck, pressing kisses into the soft hollow of skin below his jaw. His teeth grazed over the pulse point at Peter’s throat, and blood flowed faster through it, urged onward by his palpitating heart. It felt good- disgustingly good- and Peter let out a soft, ecstatic moan into the empty night.

Ernest stopped, and it took a second Peter to realize what he’d done. His face grew hot, and a hand untangled from Ernest’s hair to cover his mouth in shock. His eyes were wide, staring at Ernest’s stunned face in the dim light of the gas lamps. “We... we can’t do this here,” he whispered.

“You’re right,” Ernest murmured back to him. He didn’t pull away, though. Instead he raised a hand to Peter’s face and traced the tips of his rough, callused fingers along the scientist’s pale cheek. “I don’t live far from here,” he began softly. “If you follow me-”

Peter didn’t even need to hear the rest of it. “Yes.” 

He didn’t remember the way they walked. His eyesight had been out of sorts for a while, twisted even further by the darkness and unfamiliar streets. He gripped Ernest’s hand like a lifeline, leaned his head against his shoulder, felt the alcohol burning in his veins. He recalled a staircase, maybe a fire escape, then a few doors that he hadn’t been able to see in the dark. He fell back onto a softness he recognized as sheets, and Ernest was there, warm and solid beside him.

The rest was all faded. The memories in Peter’s head were hazy at best, blurred by alcohol or buried so deep under his embarrassment that he couldn’t dig them back up. It was all a delirious mess, drifting in and out of focus. He just barely remembered the heat of bare skin, fabric and sweat, tearing at clothes and long, feverish kisses that left bruises behind. Ernest’s lips wandering all over his body, Peter’s self-control unraveling as it never had before, and the name that he whispered in his mind as it all unfolded.

_ Delilah... _

He’d cried out for more. He had begged for it, willing Ernest to come closer even though they were already crushed against each other as much as they possibly could have been. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what he meant by it, or what it entailed, and he was sure Ernest didn’t either. 

_ Please, Delilah... _

There was more, he knew there was, but he’d blocked it out. There was something there he was missing, numbed by the alcohol, that had disappeared from his mind. But he couldn’t erase it completely. There was still one thing that remained: the silent prayer that lingered, meant for a woman whose ears it would never reach.

_ Forgive me for this. _

* * *

The first thing Peter remembered was sunlight burning his eyelids. He cracked them open and squinted into the light. It was filtering through a cream-colored curtain that fluttered faintly, the window behind it slid just slightly open. The faint, persistent rush of waves in the harbor drifted through from outside. Peter’s gaze wandered past the curtain to take in the pale blue walls, the paint spread thinly over unprimed plaster. It quickly occurred to him that this wasn’t his room. In fact, he wasn’t really sure where he was at all.

Not a second later, the pain kicked in. 

Peter groaned softly and writhed one arm out from the sheets to rub at his throbbing temples. Whatever he’d been drinking the night before, he was certainly feeling the effects of it now. Not only that, but the rest of his body ached as well. He couldn’t seem to recall why, but he felt as if he’d been run through a gauntlet, especially his legs. Everything below his waist burned. With a heavy sigh, Peter dragged himself a little ways out from under the white sheets to see what the trouble was. Sure enough, he found himself to be wearing nothing but his unbuttoned shirt, his pale body stained almost completely blue with bruises. 

_ Oh _ , he thought. 

Peter sat halfway up and tried to get his bearings. He didn’t recognize a single thing so far, although that wasn’t much of a surprise. He’d been through these sorts of mornings before. The room around him was relatively small, sparsely furnished with pale wood furniture. Still nothing came to him. Peter glanced down at the space in the bed beside him. Someone would be there. Someone always was when he woke up like this.

Lying next to him was a man. His face was handsome and expressionless, and he breathed slowly and steadily, still entrenched in a deep, drunken sleep. Peter could only see his head and shoulders from where he sat, but there was no evidence of clothing from what he saw. Not only that, but there were marks ingrained into his skin as well, vivid, red-violet stains that looked suspiciously like the ones that marred Peter’s own body.

_ Oh _ , Peter thought to himself as it slowly began to sink in. 

_ Oh. _

_ OH, DEAR GOD. _

The realization slammed into Peter with the force of a locomotive. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have dared. It wasn’t like him at all. But here he was, in bed with some strange man, covered in bruises with incriminating pain striking through his entire body.

He left. That was all there was to it. His clothes had been scattered around the bed, and it took him some time to find all of them, but he put himself back together the best that he could. He glanced back at the bed one last time, seeing that the man lying in it was still fast asleep, and left, closing the door quietly behind him. He caught a cab to take him back home. He knew the maids wouldn’t be there that morning, and he couldn’t have been more thankful for the coincidence. He didn’t want to have to explain this to anyone, especially not Miriam.

Peter staggered into the house and slammed the door behind him, stood there for a second, then his aching legs gave out and he toppled back against the door, letting himself sink listlessly down to the floor. He stared straight ahead, unable to really see anything, only aware of his hangover and the tense beating of his own heart. Slowly, he brought a shaking hand up to his mouth and stifled the sickened whine that slipped out.  _ What have I done?   _ he thought, scraping desperately through his memory for an answer. It was there, but he couldn’t bear to face it. So he kept on asking.  _ What have I done? What have I done?  _

And then he said it out loud, and his regret echoed back at him from the walls of his empty house.

“What have I done?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. That's lemon zest.  
> I hope you don't feel like dying after reading this particular chapter. I also hope that this story as a whole doesn't make you lose faith in humanity. There are a lot of fantastic and talented fanfiction writers out there.   
> I'm just not one of them.  
> Can't wait to see what bullshit comes of this situation.  
> See you next chapter.


	4. Disconcerting Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, fuck. It's another chapter.  
> I intended to post this shit last night. Technically, I could say that I intended to post this shit two nights ago, because it's currently 1:29 AM and I recently decided that I'd be doing updates on Friday nights. And, of course, as soon as that decision was made, my internet decided to shit itself and by the time I got my connection back I was too tired to live.  
> Anyway, some personal shit's gone down in my neck of the woods, and I'm feeling a bit like shit as I write this. My good friend cicada_s knows what I'm talking about, because he was nice enough to actually read my garbage. That's something I've forgotten to do up until now. I neglected to thank my friends who suckered me into making this story a published reality; so to make up for that, thanks to volatileSoloiste and my bro Feep from Fanfiction.net, who probably won't see this message in person, but will likely know in spirit that it's there.  
> I don't know what else to write in this author's note. Once again reminding you that anything said here is supposed to be period-accurate, not transphobic or homophobic or anything of the like. Trigger warnings for medical equipment and more nausea, I guess. Also, I have very little idea of how old timey medical examinations worked, so this whole chapter is probably completely inaccurate. And you can thank BuzzFeed for the old timey euphemisms for sex.  
> CONTENT WARNING: ABORTION ATTEMPT  
> Gently handcuff me to a parking meter. Bye.

 

Peter’s mouth had gone dry by the time he’d finished telling the story. He dug his fingertips into the seat cushion to try and stop himself from shaking, but it seemed that nothing could control the anxious shivers that permeated his limbs. Johona sat across from him, calmly studying his form as she listened for more. When the silence between them continued to hang in the air, she asked, “Is that it?”

“Y-yes,” Peter unsteadily replied. “That’s all there is. I spent one night with him, and then we never saw each other again.”

“And now you think you’ve somehow conceived a child because you stretched leather with another man?”

He sighed in frustration. “No, Johona, that’s _not_ what I think. That’s only a part of it. After it happened, the only thing I could do was try and forget about everything. I never even considered the idea- for _obvious_ reasons- but then...” He gestured at his own body. “All of _this_ started happening.”

Johona narrowed her eyes, as if trying to see exactly what _this_ was referring to. “So if I give you an examination and none of this turns out to be true, then what?”

“Then we can forget this, too,” Peter declared. “Or you can laugh at me for as long as you like,” he added shamefully, “because you probably will anyway.”

The prospect made Johona smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you forget eventually. But I _will_ be expecting to get a letter every now and again when I leave,” she said firmly. “Now, if I’m going to perform a full examination, we might want to move somewhere with fewer windows.”

Peter acquiesced to her request, and led her downstairs to the lab. It wasn’t as if he had any neighbors who could spy on him, since his manor resided so far out on the edges of San Diego that it might as well have been in the middle of nowhere. Normally he didn’t allow anyone to see his workplace. It was always in a state of chaos, blueprints and mechanical pieces and other hazardous things scattered everywhere. Only Iris ever came in to clean it, and only when he made a special request to Miriam for her to do so, because only Iris was willing to take on such an intimidating task by herself. Johona carried her smallest suitcase with her and followed Peter into the cool dimness of the basement. She paused as she passed by the metal slab where his partially-finished automaton lay dormant, the small lump of blue matter still weakly glowing in her core.

“My,” she said, “All this time working without end, and this is all you’ve been able to finish?”

“The planning stages were complicated,” Peter briskly explained as he cleared loose papers off of another surface. “That, and the energy source is still being finicky. I haven’t been able to capture much more than what you see there.” He flicked his hand loosely at the core.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. You’ve always been able to in the past.” She approached the cleared workstation and rested her bag on the ground. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to remove your shirt and lie down?”

Peter did as he was told and laid back, smoothing out his shirt under him. He felt the pressure from his vest seams disappear, and he was sure that they had left blue marks on his skin again.

Johona’s eyebrows rose. “Your carcass is definitely not as scrawny as I remember it.”

“Which is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Peter pointed out.

“I know, I know. I’m not saying you’re wrong just yet. Now hold still. I’m going to have to prod you a bit.”

Johona set to work quickly, taking a few instruments out of her bag that Peter didn’t have a name for. She didn’t use any of them just yet, deciding first to look over his torso. She ran her fingertips over the depressions in his skin, humming thoughtfully to herself as she did. She then carefully pressed her hands into his stomach, moving around in slow circles as she carefully felt for irregularities. “Well, the markings are odd,” she told him. “And you do feel a little bloated.”

“Is that normal?”

“For women? Yes, usually,” she said. “I’m going to have to remove your shoes.”

“What for?”

“Even in the early stages, there’s sometimes swelling in the feet and ankles,” she explained as she undid the laces of his shoes and dropped them on the floor. She took one of his bare feet in her hands and turned it around, flexing and extending his ankle, then moved on to prodding around his bones with her fingers. “Yes, you definitely have something going on here. Your socks left marks on your feet, too.”

“Hm,” Peter mumbled in acknowledgement. “I never noticed that one before.”

Johona poked at him for a while longer, not sharing a word of her observations, before she finally stood back and returned to her bag. “Well, I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but you are displaying quite a few of the signs, in addition to everything you told me before.” She leaned down and picked up one of her instruments, a long rubber tube that split into two metal rods that ended in soft, hollow nibs. The other end was a strange metal contraption, with a bell-shaped piece on one side and a curved piece coated in leather at the other. “There’s only one more thing to do now.”

“What is that?” Peter asked. He was starting to feel somewhat nervous.

“This little beauty,” Johona said proudly, holding up the item with a flourish, “is called a Pinard stethoscope. I just bought it in January. And don’t worry about what I’m doing with it. The worst you’ll feel is a slight chill.”

Peter nodded, then took a breath to try and calm himself down. Johona pressed the metal bell into his abdomen, and he shivered in response. “Cold?” she asked.

“A little,” he replied impassively.

“It’ll warm up soon enough.” With that, Johona leaned her head against the curved piece and placed the nibs of the other end into her ears. The room was tense with silence as she leaned over him, studying. Every few seconds, she moved the bell a little bit in some direction or another, her eyebrows knitted in concentration. Peter was beginning to lose his nerve again as he waited for her to say something. Finally, after what felt like hours, Johona took the nibs out of her ears. The look on her face told Peter that something wasn’t right.

“What is it?” he asked, unable to take any more anticipation.

In response, Johona held out the earpieces toward him. “You’re going to want to hear this,” she said.

Hesitantly, Peter placed the nibs into his ears as he had seen her do. The sounds that came through were fuzzy and indistinct, but they didn’t stay that way long. Johona pressed down on the bell again, and something came through, faint but unmistakable. A steady rhythm whispered out of the stethoscope earpieces, fast and frantic, like the sound of a frightened rabbit beating its foot against the ground.

_Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump._

Peter went stock-still, his heart seized up in his chest. The steady beat continued to echo in his ears. He took the earpieces out and looked at Johona, his eyes wide and startled. “What is that?” he breathed.

“If I’m not mistaken,” she began, and he could tell she was struggling to stay calm. “And at this point, I’m almost completely sure that I’m not... That’s the sound of your baby’s heart.”

Peter wasn’t sure he was hearing correctly. Johona had to be playing a joke of some kind. That sound could have been anything. He couldn’t... There couldn’t be... She wasn’t serious...

“The... what?” he murmured breathlessly. His looked down to his exposed torso, then at Johona’s face. “Let me listen to it again.”

Johona shrugged and pressed the stethoscope bell into his abdomen again. “You can, if you want to, but what you hear isn’t going to change. I just need to find it again.” She took the earpieces from him and spent a moment searching. “There it is. It’s clearest here.” She removed the earpieces and handed them back to her friend.

Peter hastily plugged the nibs into his ears and listened. He lay deathly still, barely even daring to breathe. He feared that even the slightest movement would drown out the sound that traveled through the stethoscope. But he could still hear it, even clearer than the last time. _Th-thump_ , _th-thump_ in a fast, steady beat, tapping against his eardrums like a drizzling rain. The pulse was far too fast to be his own. He lay on the table, listening, slowly dissolving into an anxious wreck. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It couldn’t be true. He might have had suspicions, but there were always doubts to contend with, too. And this was far beyond anything he’d been expecting. This was... this was...

The denials ran rampant in Peter’s head, and suddenly they stopped. His head cleared for a mere second, and he realized something. Everything that had happened had been brought upon himself. _He’d_ been the first one to make assertions about his condition, and _he’d_ been the one who asked Johona to travel all the way to California to see him. She hadn’t believed him, and he could have just agreed with her and left it at that. But he hadn’t. Maybe he’d been too frightened of being wrong, or had wanted Johona to get something out of all the trouble she’d gone through to come and see him.

Or maybe, somewhere deep in his soul, he’d believed it. Maybe he’d intrinsically known something was wrong with him. His instincts knew before he did that something had changed. He’d heard of it happening in nature before. Never to a male of any species, of course, but he had a nagging feeling his case was different.

Listlessly, Peter took out the earpieces of the stethoscope and handed them to Johona. She took them and calmly stowed the back in her bag, not saying a word. The quiet was somewhat comforting, but at the same time, it left the ominous thought of what he’d just heard to hang over his head. Peter sat up on the lab table, legs bent halfway to his chest, slumped forward and promptly buried his face in his hands. He took another deep, shaking breath to try and steady himself, but he knew it was hopeless. He felt he was about to lose his mind.

“Normally I’d congratulate someone who came through with this result,” Johona said, deadpan. “But judging by the circumstances, it probably isn’t an appropriate reaction.”

“How did this happen?” Peter said, his words quiet and raspy. He dug his fingers into his hair and pulled, grinding his palms into his forehead. “Why did this... How is it even possible?”

“We both know I don’t have an answer for you.”

Peter tore his hands away from his face and turned to Johona, a wide-eyed, almost frightened look on his face. “What am I going to do now?” he asked imploringly. “Please tell me there’s something you can do.”

Johona pursed her lips and drummed her fingertips against the table. “That depends, really.”

“Oh what?”

“Whether you plan on keeping the child or not.”

“Keeping the child?” Peter repeated back at her, distraught. “Johona, I don’t know the first thing about children. I’m in the middle of executing the biggest scientific breakthrough I’ve ever had in my life, and I can barely think about anything else. I can’t risk the responsibility of caring for... for... even a _cat_ would be too much to try and remember.”

Johona nodded. “So you want me to get rid of it for you?”

“You make it sound so harsh when you put it that way,” he said. “But... actually, there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned to you yet.” He sighed, his eyes again wandering down to his body. “There’s a certain problem with that course of action.”

“Which is?”

“I’ve already tried it.”

Johona cocked her head to the side, the look on her face a mix of skepticism and unadulterated worry. “What do you mean, you’ve already tried it?”

“I’ve tried to abort it,” Peter explained. “A few times, and in quite a few different ways. I tried every remedy that my books had to offer, and nothing helped. They only made me twice as sick as before, and I don’t know that anything you give me would be any different.”

“You tried to abort it on your own?” Johona sounded horrified. “Peter, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? You could have poisoned yourself!”

“I was trying to act quickly, and I didn’t know what else to do,” he tossed back. “And I’m fairly sure that I _did_ poison myself at least once. Probably more.”

“Merciful heaven, Walter,” the nurse grumbled, putting a hand to her forehead. “Sometimes I don’t know how you’ve survived even _this_ long.”

“I don’t make the best decisions when I’m desperate.”

“Yes, of course. And that’s how you wound up here.” She moved her hand to her chin and tapped it thoughtfully with a fingertip. “If you’d had the help of a medical professional, you might have actually gotten something out of all that misery you put yourself through. I do have one method that’s been proven quite effective in its use. It’s not the most orthodox treatment, but it works far better than what I’ve seen some doctors in  the practice use.” She paused, then added, “I will warn you about one thing, though. You aren’t going to like what it does.”

Peter shrugged her last comment off, as if it meant nothing to him. “At this point, I don’t think I have a choice.”

“Are you sure about this? You know that as a nurse, I can’t do anything without your approval.”

A tense moment passed, and Peter nodded. “I’ll do it. Whatever I have to.”

“Alright. As you wish,” Johona said. “But I’m going to need to go out to get the ingredients, since I don’t think you’d happen to have them hanging around in your pantry.”

“I brought you out here, Johona. I’ll do whatever you ask of me, as long as you can fix this.”

Johona looked at him for a long while, not apparently happy, but satisfied with his answer. “Then it’s settled.”

* * *

The two of them spent hours wandering around San Diego, going from one apothecary to another, trying to find the specific blends of herbs that Johona required. In most places, Peter came to find that they didn’t carry some part of the concoction or another because of the connotations behind them. It wasn’t a common occurrence that people went looking for an abortive therapy, or if it was, it was rarely mentioned. After Peter was subjected to a number of disapproving looks from each pharmacist he tried to speak to, he gave up and let Johona take over for him. She didn’t have any easier of a time dealing with the reactions, but she at least managed to get what she asked for. Still, she had to repeatedly assure each pharmacist she spoke to that yes, she really was a nurse, and that she was required to keep these particular herbs handy “just in case.”

They had to pass through eight stores before they finally managed to accumulate all the ingredients. All the while, Peter felt self-consciousness crawling along his spine. Everywhere he went, people seemed to be looking at him.

He should have been used to it, having spent so many years being pale and blue-haired as he was, but he had the subtle notion now that there was some other reason that they all stared. And they _were_ staring. He was sure of it. The thought made his stomach tense, as if he needed to keep it that way in order to hide what he now knew to be true. Every set of eyes that hovered over him felt suspicious, like they all knew something about him, despite the fact that he barely opened his mouth even once as Johona negotiated with the pharmacists. He stayed close to Johona and hoped she’d be able to distract them, or defend him if that was what it came to. She never brought his actions into question. Not until they had left the last stop on their expedition, anyway.

“What’s wrong?” Johona asked once they were out on the street, the traffic around them enough to drown out their words. “Do you feel sick?”

 _She’s not wrong_ , Peter thought. But by then, vomiting was the least of his concerns. “A little,” he said. “But I can manage.”

“We can stop somewhere for a while, if you like.”

“I’d really rather not.”

Johona glanced sideways at him. “And why not? I don’t want to keep dragging you around if you don’t feel well. And if you’re going to vomit, you’d probably rather not do it in the middle of a busy street.”

“You have a point, but I already said it isn’t that serious.”

“Then what is it? You’ve been acting strange ever since we left the first shop.”

Peter leaned in close to Johona as they walked and said, in a lowered voice, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but... I feel like I’m being stared at.”

Johona snorted a little and smiled. “You’re blue, and you’re hanging around with a Navajo woman. Of course people are staring at you.”

“Well, I’ve been blue a long time, but I’ve never felt quite like this.” He lowered his voice even more to whisper, “Do you suspect... I don’t know how they could, but perhaps they can tell that-”

“You’re overthinking this, Peter,” Johona cut him off. “I think that’s the hormones talking.”

With an exasperated sigh, he dropped the subject. “We can leave now, though, can’t we? You have everything you came for,” he said, gesturing at the rustling paper bags under Johona’s arm.

“We can. We should stop and pick something up from a grocer first, though.”

“Why?”

“Because from what I saw, your food stores didn’t look to be in great condition,” she replied frankly. “I certainly hope you’ve been remembering to feed yourself in all the time that I’ve been gone.”

Peter rolled his eyes, fully aware that Johona couldn’t see. She couldn’t have been more typical.

* * *

 “How many times have you used this formula before?” Peter asked what was probably the hundredth question he’d posed to his friend within the last hour.

“Twenty-six, if you’re willing to count the people who came directly to me for it instead of through my employer,” Johona answered in a deadpan voice, not looking up from the small cast-iron pot that she had placed over the stove. Steam drifted up from it, filling the kitchen with an overwhelming herbal smell.

“And it’s worked every time?”

“It only ever failed me once, and that was because the girl I gave it to vomited it back up too quickly. She survived, though, and judging by what you’ve already put yourself through, I think you will, too.”

“That’s reassuring,” Peter snipped sarcastically. He watched Johona work, his eyes following her hands as they cut leaves and blossoms from stems, crumbled their dry remains into the pot and stirred its contents together with a small wooden ladle. Johona was standing directly in the cloud of vapor that rose from the concoction, totally impassive, and Peter started wondering if she had really made this particular medicine _only_ 26 times. The heavy stench that filled the kitchen was enough to make Peter gag. “Am I going to have to drink all of that?” he asked tensely, staring at her cauldron. There must have been a quart of fluid in it, at the very least.

“Not directly from the pot. Most of the water will boil away by the time I’m finished, and then I’ll have to strain it. The oils I’ll be adding won’t add much to the volume, either.”

“There are oils, too?”

“Yes, there are. You would’ve known if you had been paying attention.”

Peter frowned at the thought. He already wasn’t enjoying the smell that the concoction gave off. The thought of a slimy film floating on top when he’d have to drink it made him feel even sicker than he already was. He backed away from the stove and moved towards the doorway, thoroughly intimidated. He’d already thrown up once that morning, and he perfectly fine leaving the day’s vomit quota where it stood.

“I’ll just... be in the library,” he said, spitting out the first place that he could think of. Johona did little more than glance at him as he briskly walked out of the room and away from the smell.

The library was a considerable improvement over the hellhole that the kitchen had become. Dust, cobweb threads and aging paper were soothing replacements for the pungent scent of cooking medicine. Peter pulled a stack of novels from the shelves and began thumbing through the pages for a place to start. He’d already been through nearly every last work of fiction he owned, but he didn’t mind reading them more than once. All he needed was something to get his mind off of what he’d smelled and keep his stomach settled for the time being.

It didn’t last, though. Only a few minutes later, while Peter was a few pages deep into a Jules Verne novel, Johona walked in with a steaming bowl held in her hands. He glanced up at her, his nerves immediately on edge. The bowl was smaller than the cooking pot she’d used, but not by very much.

“Finished,” she said, holding the medicine out towards him. “Drink this, and by tomorrow you should be back to normal. Or,” she reconsidered, “at least as normal as you can be.”

Hesitantly, Peter reached out and gingerly took it from her hands. He peered over the ceramic edge and into the bowl. It was warm in his hands, and the liquid inside was a deep yellowish-green. As he stared, a waft of vapor rose from the surface and struck him in the face. It smelled like something akin to rotting leaves, burning hair and something else in it that was bitter and herbal, almost tea-like, but not a far cry from the turpentine that he’d been forcing down his throat only a few days before. Peter gagged and jerked his head back, holding the bowl at an arm’s length from himself. “I-It smells repulsive,” he complained.

“I never said that it was going to be pleasant.” Johona eased the bowl back towards him. “And you were able to make yourself drink turpentine. If you did that much, I think you can manage this.”

Peter looked back at the bowl and winced. “All of it?”

“All at once,” Johona instructed.

Sighing, he tried to bring the bowl up to his mouth, but the herbal stench turned his stomach and drove his hands away again. “I... I don’t know if I can do it... This might take me a while.”

“You don’t have a while. You’ll need to drink it while it’s hot, otherwise the contents will settle, the oils will start to congeal and it’ll be even worse.” A sly look appeared in Johona’s eyes. “Of course, I could always hold you down and _force_ you to-”

“Okay, okay! I’ll drink it,” Peter acquiesced and brought the edge of the bowl up to his lips. The smell hit him again, even harder this time, and he tried to keep from choking as he forced himself to pour the rancid-tasting concoction into his mouth. The stuff tasted just as vile as it smelled, ran like dirty rainwater over his tongue and burned the back of his throat. It must have been just a touch away from boiling, because his mouth seared with pain at the fluid’s touch before slowly going numb as he forced himself to drink. He drained the bowl in a few fast, deep swallows, shuddering as each one went down.

“Th-there,” he said, slamming the bowl down onto the table. He had to force the words out past the convulsions in his throat. “It’s f-finished.” He put a hand to his face to hold his mouth shut and wipe the traces of the poison away. The vise of nausea was tightening fast, squeezing his innards, but he remembered what Johona said. This was one substance he would have to keep down, for his own good.

“Good,” Johona said approvingly. “See? Wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

“It was awful,” Peter said, his disgust apparent on his face.

“Well, you’ll be relieved to know that the hardest part is over.” She picked up the bowl and stood up. “The herbs should take effect in a few hours. Until then, all you need to do is sit comfortably and get some rest. It’s late enough as it is.”

Peter glanced at the grandfather clock in the far corner. It was a little after eleven. “I’m usually up for a while longer after this time of night. You can sleep if you want to, though. I won’t stop you.”

Johona sighed and studied Peter, a hand perched on her hip. “I wouldn’t advise that in your situation,” she said firmly. “This is just my medical opinion, but I would personally recommend that you get as much sleep as you can. You’re going to need it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Peter couldn’t ignore the foreboding tone in her words.

“Exactly what it sounds like. You should be getting as much rest as possible while the therapy goes into effect,” she continued, seeming to have missed the point of his comment entirely. “Dear god, Peter. You haven’t been eating properly, haven’t been sleeping enough, you’ve been drinking alone, wandering around the city at night, having irresponsible sex... any other ways you’ve tried to get yourself killed that I should know about?”

“I...” Peter started to protest, but it didn’t take long for Johona’s words to sink in. She was right. He hadn’t been taking care of himself at all. It seemed that he’d been too busy mourning to remember that he was still a living thing. He dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed. “No,” he said, sounding defeated. “No, that’s it, really. Just neglecting myself, and all the risky behavior...” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Johona, there’s something that’s been on my mind since this morning.”

“What would that happen to be?”

“Well, when I told you that I... when I told you about... _what I believe happened_ to make all of _this_ possible...” He gestured at his stomach. “I was expecting you to react... I’m not sure how to put this. A little more violently, perhaps?”

“Violently?” Johona laughed. “Peter, I think you have enough violence in your life with all the sickness you’ve had to deal with.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he tried to explain. “I mean... I told you how _I_ reacted when I found out what I’d done. And that was _me_. I had no intentions of ever telling anyone about it, and with good reason, but when I explained it to you... You didn’t give me the response I thought I would get.”

“Would you rather I have been more angry about it?” the nurse asked rhetorically. “Or what about disgusted? I could have pulled that off fairly well. Even better, I could have acted insulted that you’d been having feelings for other men and hadn’t told me about it.”

“No, the way you reacted was fine. Better than anything I could have hoped for, actually. I was only wondering why you did what you did. It didn’t make much sense.” A second later, he added, “And I haven’t _been_ having feelings for other men. It was only ever once.”

Johona fixed him with a calm, comprehensive stare. “You know what kind of profession I work in, don’t you, Peter?” she asked.

“Nursing?” he replied, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means that I’ve dealt with all sorts of people. It isn’t exactly moral to discriminate which patients you decide to treat based on their lifestyle choices.”

“So you’ve...”

“Treated homosexuals? Yes. Quite a few, actually. Probably some that I wasn’t even aware of,” Johona stated almost cheerfully. “It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it used to. When I first found out about it, I was a little shocked, as most people would be, but now, it’s...” She shrugged and flicked her hand at the air. “I really don’t mind. I don’t quite understand it, and their practices in the bedroom sound more than a little odd, but they don’t interfere with my life, so I simply live and let live.”

“Wait a second,” Peter cut in. “What did you just say about the bedroom?”

“I was referring to sex,” she said bluntly. “But I’d assume that you know more about that than I would at this point.”

Peter felt his face flush powder blue as he slowly shook his head. “That’s... not really true. To be honest, I barely remember what happened that night. Only the next morning, I felt like I could barely walk.”

“Oh. So you _did_ go through with it the way I thought you did!” She was grinning, a giggle at the edges of her voice.

“What way?”

“Well, since you asked, I might as well tell you the truth. To put it plainly, you took it up the ass.”

The color drained from Peter’s face. “I took _what_?”

“That’s how most of them do it, from what I’ve heard. It’s similar to what a man would do with a woman, only a little bit backwards, in a different orifice. And you’d never done it before, which was probably why you were so sore afterward. That kind of thing certainly doesn’t sound easy the first time you do it.” Johona bit back a snicker when she saw the look on Peter’s face. “You really don’t remember a thing, do you?”

“No, and I’m kind of glad that I don’t,” he tossed back. “That sounds awful. Why would I have allowed anyone to... ugh, why?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question properly.

“I’ve asked that same question a few times before. Apparently, once a man becomes accustomed to it, it isn’t painful at all. It’s really quite pleasurable. You must have just been too drunk to feel anything.”

“A good thing I was, too.” Peter leaned onto the arm of the loveseat where he sat and put his head in his hand. “I can’t even begin tell you what came over me that night, Johona. I’ve never thought of another man that way. I never even considered it, but... I was willing to go so far, and let so much happen.” He sighed, the exhalation almost sounding like a laugh. “And look at where it’s landed me.”

“So what of it now?” Johona asked. “Has your mind been expanded? Maybe looking into new possibilities?”

“No,” Peter answered, a little too fast. “I’m perfectly fine leaving that night where it stands, along with all the feelings that went with it, whatever the hell they might have been.”

“Alright. Suit yourself, then.” She turned away and started toward the door, realized Peter wasn’t following, and stopped to look back at him. “Are you coming to bed?”

Peter opened his mouth to say no, then shut it and sighed. He figured he’d made enough bad decisions on his own. It was probably in his best interests that he listen to Johona, at least for as long as she was to be taking care of him. With an awkward, sleepy movement, Peter stood up from the loveseat, stretched his back and crossed the room to meet his friend on the other side. She gave him a quick, satisfied smile before starting off into the hallway again, this time with him in tow.

“You’ve chosen a room to stay in, right?” Peter asked after all the tools that had been used to make and serve Johona’s medicine had been cleaned and put away.

“I did. I’ll be only a few doors down from yours,” she confirmed. They parted ways at the top of the staircase, and she added, “If anything should happen during the night, do not hesitate to wake me up. Remember, I’m here to help you.”

“I know,” Peter assured her. “Goodnight, Johona.”

“Goodnight.” She disappeared behind the door to her temporary bedroom.

Peter went to his own room and shut the door behind him. Johona had been right to tell him to sleep now. He was starting to feel unusually drowsy. The unsettled feeling that the medicine had left him with was far from gone, but at the very least, the taste was chased away when he brushed his teeth. He wondered as he undressed whether or not Johona had slipped some kind of sleeping draught into the mixture along with the toxins that made up most of it. Purgatives, she’d said, was what they were called. Meant to get rid of things in a quick, clean manner. Peter only hoped that they would work as well as she’d said they would.

He dropped off to sleep as soon after he laid down. It happened so fast, he nearly forgot to put out the candle beside his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is.  
> I hope you enjoyed Johona being the Mom Friend TM. It's 2:30 AM now and I am barely functional.  
> See you next chapter.


	5. From A Hope To A Heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 1:40 in the morning and I'm stalling the fuck out of this post because my good friend cicada_s is still here in my dorm with me and I don't want him sneaking spoilers over my shoulder.  
> Okay, we readjusted so now my back is to the wall and he can't stalk me.  
> Anyway,  
> I hope you're all enjoying watching Peter suffer so far. In reference to the last chapter, and the second as well, I remember my beta volatileSoloiste was confused about some certain substances that certain people were drinking to solve certain problems. As it happens, turpentine and pennyroyal actually WERE used as homeopathic abortion therapies back in the day when that wasn't something that happened a whole lot. I learned so much in the extensive 10 minutes that I spent researching this on google. I'm so educated.  
> My roommate is dancing to Africa by Toto for no fucking reason right now and I can't think. I had to look at my last chapter's author note for inspiration to write this one. Because, of course, nobody can go a single chapter without hearing my shitty opinion.  
> Oh, yeah. There's some important stuff I should mention before we delve into this chapter.  
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR DEPRESSION, SUICIDE MENTION, ABORTION ATTEMPT, AND OF COURSE, MORE MOTHERFUCKING VOMIT. CAN'T FORGET ABOUT THE VOMIT. THE SUICIDE MENTION IS SORT OF MORE IMPORTANT IN TERMS OF TRIGGER WARNINGS THOUGH SO...  
> TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE MENTION.  
> I think that's all I had to say. I'll probably end up going back and editing this while I work on the actual post.

 

Johona got up early the next morning, as she always did. It was nearly 7, so she was told by the first clock that she glanced at. From what she knew about Peter, he likely wasn’t even close to waking up yet. However, at the same time, they’d been separated for quite a while. There might have been a great deal about him that had changed that she still had yet to learn. All things considered, him finally becoming accustomed to getting out of bed at a reasonable time would have been a far better development than some of the others that she’d come across.

 _It might not really be him, though_ , she thought as she slipped on a dressing gown over her thin cotton shift. Peter hadn’t been a slacker in the time that she had known him. True, he was unconventional, but so was everyone else who had studied at the Cavalcadium. His priorities might have been a little out of whack sometimes, and he did have a proclivity toward getting lost in his work from time to time, but it had never been _dangerous_. She’d never seen him forget himself like this before.

Something was wrong that Peter wasn’t letting on, she hypothesized. She knew that he hadn’t taken Delilah’s death well. She had been able to infer that much from the story he’d told her, even with the sparse information that he’d been willing to give. His way of coping wasn’t nearly as bad as what Thaddeus had done, what with how he’d spirited himself away to some remote corner of the world. But Peter wasn’t far behind. The thought of it all made Johona worry. If Peter had been alone all this time, mourning by himself in this huge, crumbling mansion, no living things to talk to and no one who understood him but the half-finished creation in his basement, that could only mean...

Johona ushered the thought out of her mind. The reality was that the worst hadn’t happened yet. Peter was still intact, as far as she could tell, and whatever biological anomaly had put him in his current state would only be transitory. He would be himself again eventually.

Speaking that biological anomaly, he hadn’t come to wake her up in the night. She’d told him to, and she was sure that he would have.

Johona glanced at the clock again. The treatment should have gone into effect hours earlier. Surely he must have had _some_ kind of reaction. He couldn’t have possibly slept through it all. She’d never heard of it happening before. The women she’d used it on before had always reported the same side effects, and their cases were always successful. If Peter hadn’t reacted, then what could that mean?

The question was enough to put Johona in front of Peter’s bedroom door and set her to knocking. She rapped a few times on the wood with the side of her hand. “Peter? Are you awake yet?”

There was no answer. A few seconds later, she tried again, only to be met with the same silence. Her brow creasing with concern, she reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open. The room inside was empty, and the covers on the bed appeared to have been thrown hastily aside. Johona sighed at the observation. So it seemed that Peter _had_ reacted to the treatment after all. And he hadn’t even bothered to tell her.

She didn’t even need to ask herself where he’d gone. By then, there was only one place he could possibly be.

Johona left Peter’s room for the closest bathroom in the upstairs hallway. She tapped on the door with her knuckles. “Peter?” she called out. No answer, so she tried again. “Peter, are you in there? Are you alright?”

“Nnnngh,” a muffled groan answered from inside.

Johona allowed a small smile to herself. He was still alive, and that was something. “I’m coming in,” she informed him. “If you’re not decent, it won’t matter to me.”

She opened the door without a second’s hesitation. The acrid, acidic smell of sickness hit her straightaway. It seemed that her friend’s reaction had gone swimmingly. She stepped into the room and gently shut the door behind her.The window was open, a slight breeze coming through, and it did next to nothing to vent out the smell. The door to the water closet was open, and a pair of long, skinny legs stuck out through the opening. She approached to find Peter sprawled out on the tile floor, looking like a cadaver at a murder scene. A thin layer of sweat glistened on his forehead, and he looked up at Johona with shadowed, bloodshot eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asked kindly, even though the question was laughably unnecessary.

Peter stared at her for a long time, heaving for breath as his stomach convulsed. Eventually he spoke, the words forced out slowly, methodically, and more miserably than anything Johona had ever heard.

“I. Want. Death.”

Johona knelt down next to him. “How long have you been in here?”

“Don’t know,” Peter croaked. “It was still dark when I woke up.”

“Why didn’t you come and get me like I told you to?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary. At first I thought maybe it was just a wave of nausea hitting me at an odd time, but by the time I realized it wasn’t...” He trailed off with a heavy sigh, and his face twisted into a pained expression. “I was stuck here. I couldn’t leave.”

“You poor thing,” Johona said softly. She placed a hand on his knee, trying to comfort him. “I take it you know what purgatives do now?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry for not asking you before,” he replied weakly and shuddered. “It was horrible.”

“It generally is. Are you still going?”

“I don’t think so. It’s been a while since I last spat anything out, and I don’t even know if I have any organs left to spit things _with_. I think they might have fallen out along with everything else.”

Johona laughed a little. “You’re glad you slept when I told you to now, aren’t you?”

“In retrospect, it really didn’t do much for me. I still feel like I’ve been run over by a trolley.” He struggled to sit up and leaned sideways against the wall. “How long will it be until I know whether or not this worked?”

“Well, the side effects went as expected, so whatever it was you were growing should be gone by now,” she explained. “But we should probably hold off on checking until this evening, just to be sure.”

“Alright,” Peter weakly agreed. He pulled his legs back from their sprawl and staggered to his feet, leaning against the wall for support. “In the meantime, I am in desperate need of a bath. Preferably _not_ in a room that smells like my own fluids.” He started to stumble towards the door, but Johona stopped him, grabbing his arm just as his legs started to quaver. In a second he found himself leaning heavily on Johona’s shoulder, having narrowly avoided collapsing to the floor.

“I don’t think you should be doing very much moving right now,” she firmly advised. “Besides, something else might happen. The side effects can take a while to wear off.”

“I’ll be fine, Johona. It’s only the other end of the hallway.”

Johona fixed him with a stern look.“You can barely stand, Peter. At this point, I wouldn’t trust your legs as far as I could throw them.”

“But I can’t stand it in here,” he pleaded, a pitiful expression on his face. “Please, Johona.”

She stared at her friend a second longer, then pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Fine,” she surrendered. “Fine, you can leave. But I’m going to be your crutch on the way there. And I’m not leaving until your guts have stayed at ease for at least another hour. Understand?”

Peter nodded quickly, visibly relieved. Together, they left the bathroom for the next nearest one, which was smaller, but considerably more comfortable when it came to the smell in the air. Johona lowered Peter down to the floor and he leaned back against the side of the bathtub, trying to get as comfortable as he could. His face was still flushed and his nightshirt damp with sweat, but he wasn’t dry-heaving anymore, which Johona thought was a considerable improvement as she sat down across from him.

For the next hour, Johona sat with him, talking things over and keeping him still. They tried to catch up on everything they had lost track of in the days since the Cavalcadium was lost. Johona told him the stories of how she had gone from one employer to the next, trying to find one who would respect her for the skills she had and would keep her on their staff in spite of the stigma that far too many patients seemed to have about her appearance. In return, Peter told her about his seemingly endless work, about the frustratingly slow process of summoning and capturing blue matter, and his failures upon failures in an attempt to harness the substance. The partially finished automaton he had made still looked good, Johona pointed out in an attempt to console him. Then she tried to move on from the subject, telling him stories of patients who had come in with strange illnesses and odd injuries, and all the things she’d had to do to save them from whatever ailments they had.

Eventually, Johona momentarily left the room to check the time. It was a little after 8, just as she’d suspected, and she returned to the bathroom to let Peter know.

“It’s been an hour, and no incidents so far,” she said as she stepped through the door. “Seems like my work here is done.”

“Perfect,” Peter replied. He leaned a hand on the edge of the bathtub to help himself to his feet. “I’ve been itching for a bath for ages. I’ll be surprised if I ever feel clean again after this.”

Johona let slip a laugh. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Come and find me when you’re finished.”

“Alright.”

“ _Actually do it this time_ , Walter.”

“I will!” Peter shot back, frustrated. Smirking, Johona stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her. Her friend seemed to be doing well in her care. He was probably annoyed with her already, but that was the way she liked him to be. When Peter was annoyed, he listened. It seemed that listening was something he desperately needed to do, for once in his life.

She only hoped that she could make the improvement last. If all of this illness was temporary, as much as she hoped it would be, she would eventually have to leave him when it all came to an end. And if he didn’t send her a telegram, a letter, or anything else... If he slipped back into the pit he’d been in before she’d arrived, she didn’t think she would ever forgive herself.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, the medicine hadn’t worn off at all. Peter got sick again as he was running the bathwater, waiting for it to heat up. It wasn’t nearly as bad this time, only a slight convulsion, and when it was over he was still able to stand. Still, he was tired of it. He’d been spewing out random contents out for hours, and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. He’d thought that his fits of nausea- morning sickness, as he now realized they were- had been bad enough. They were nothing in comparison to what Johona’s concoction had done to him.

The bath was hot enough to sear his skin, but nothing less would get rid of the awful feeling that the early hours of the morning had left him with. He scrubbed furiously at himself until his scalp ached and his body was blushed blue and raw. He then stayed in the water until it was the same temperature as the air outside of it, feeling too exhausted to move. He wondered what time it was, how much of the day he’d wasted on getting sick and trying to clean the feeling away. He’d already lost yesterday to the examination and trip into the city with Johona. There was still so much work to be done. He had two more automatons to build before his project was finished, and then there was the issue of the blue matter.

If he couldn’t harness it and complete his work in a reasonable amount of time, he would be destitute for sure. A number of businesses had offered to finance his project, giving him a generous combined grant to use as he pleased in the hope that he would show some kind of innovative promise from which they could benefit. There was no real deadline that he had been given, but he had to show them some kind of result before long. They needed something in return for what they gave him, and without the Cavalcadium to fall back on, his invention and the recognition it would earn him were his only hope to make a respectable living.

Peter cleared the thoughts of his impending doom out of his mind as he pulled the stopper from the drain and stepped out of the lukewarm bath. It had only been one day that he’d missed. He could always make it up later, once Johona left him to his own devices again. Losing a night or two of sleep hadn’t killed him when he was studying at the Cavalcadium, and he didn’t think it would anytime in the near future. He would deal with the corporations when the time came. For now, though, he had other things to contend with.

Once he was dried and dressed, Peter went downstairs to search for Johona. He found her in the kitchen, rifling through his pantry as the smells of fresh cooking drifted in the air. His friend turned around at the sound of movement, holding a teacup, a strainer and a handful of dried herbs. “Hello, there. Feeling better?”

“As much better as I can be,” he said, slouching back against the counter. “What are you doing?”

“Making us something to eat, since I think that after this morning, we both deserve at least that much.” She rolled the herbs into the strainer and dropped it into the teacup before filling it with water from the hissing kettle. She placed the cup beside Peter. “There you are. And I hope you don’t mind me having helped myself to a few of the scones you had in here. They looked marvelous. I didn’t know you bake.”

“I don’t. One of the maids keeps leaving them out for me,” Peter explained. He picked up the teacup and saw a faint greenish-gold color seeping out from the tea strainer. “What is this?”

“Peppermint and ginger. It’ll help settle you.” She stirred a steaming pot on the stove and tasted a bit of its from the ladle she used. “That’s good enough. Maybe a bit more rosemary, though...”

“Second shelf down, towards the left,” Peter told her.

“I know, I know. I’ve already found it once.” She added a few more things from the pantry to the pot, stirred some more and cleaned up the ingredients she’d used. Moments later, two steaming bowls of chicken soup were placed out on the small table in the center of the room. “I apologize if the meat’s a little tough. All you had was cured stuff, but I figured it would work just as well.”

Peter still smiled at her as he pulled up a chair to the table. “This is too kind of you, really.”

“I’m only doing what any halfway-decent friend would do,” she said humbly, pulling up a chair of her own. “Besides, other than the pastries, I’m not sure when was the last time you had freshly made food.”

Her words made Peter pause, but he brushed them off. Everything she had given him was still close to boiling, and he had to wait for their temperature to be tolerable, but once that was out of the way and he was able to eat, he felt infinitely better.

“Did the bath help as much as you thought it would?” Johona asked in the middle of things.

“It did, for its intended purposes,” Peter replied.

“I don’t blame you for feeling like you needed one. I told you that the procedure wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“You never told me I’d be ejecting my innards.”

“Well, think about the etymology of the term. Purgatives. It purifies, meaning it forces a person’s body to-”

“I _know_ what it does, Johona. You don’t need to explain it.”

She smiled a little at his frustration, which annoyed him, but he had learned to deal with her over the years. This was her way of showing she cared. And, irritating as it could be, it was kind of reassuring. It had been a long time since someone had looked after him like this.

“It isn’t still going on, though, is it?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “The side effects are supposed to wear off after twelve hours, at their very longest.”

“The worst of it has been over for a while, and I don’t think it’ll be coming back any time soon,” he relayed to her. “Although I do feel like I’ve been completely drained.”

“That’s normal. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“My only concern is whether or not I’ll be able to focus on my work. If I wind up wasting another day-”

“Do you really think that’s the best thing for you to be doing right now?”

Peter paused and fixed Johona with a confounded look as if she’d said something offensively ignorant. “And what do _you_ propose I do for whatever’s left of the day?”

“Well, what do you feel like doing?”

“If you want me to be totally honest, I feel like going back to sleep for a few hours,” Peter answered her question with a sort of surrender. “Maybe a few days.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“W-what’s stopping-” Peter sputtered, astonished. “I need to finish this project, Johona. If I don’t have something to show for my efforts and all the that time I’ve already spent, I’ll be ruined.”

“And if you fall asleep while holding welding tools, or spark plugs, or _god knows_ what else, then your hands will be ruined. Forever,” Johona cut in. She stared Peter down across the table, her gaze stern but forgiving. “You’re sick, Peter. Right now, you’re volatile. You can’t function the way you normally do. You need to remember that and treat yourself accordingly.” Peter started to protest, but Johona quickly continued over him and shut him up. “You had one hell of an episode this morning. You’ve lost a lot of sleep, and you’re worn out. If it were me in your place, I’d be doing whatever I could to put myself right. Now, I’m only a nurse, and I can’t force you to do anything, but as your friend, it would make me feel a great deal better if you did.”

The kitchen was quiet for a while. Peter’s lips were parted, ready to send a smart reply back to Johona, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words. She had a point. He was tired, and it was better that he didn’t risk putting himself in danger. It was only one more day of work to lose. He’d spent entire days and nights in the lab before and gotten less done than what he’d accomplished in the past few days before Johona had arrived. If it was only one more, and if he could catch up and continue working with a clearer head when all of this mess was finally over, maybe he’d be better off.

“You’re right,” he finally said.

“Am I?” she retorted skeptically.

“You are,” Peter repeated, making no effort to hide how defeated he felt. “I... I shouldn’t be handling dangerous equipment when I’m like this. In fact, I don’t even want to. I only... I don’t want to fall behind. I’ve wasted enough time with leaving parts of this project partially finished, and if I waste any more, I don’t know where I’ll be.”

“Most likely, you’ll be in a better condition and able to work more productively.” With a quick, efficient movement, Johona stood up from her chair and swept up the empty cups and bowls from the table. “I’ll take care of these. You go and get some rest.”

“Way ahead of you.” Peter pushed his chair back from the table, stacked it onto Johona’s and stowed them back in their corner of the room. “Will you be alright on your own? I don’t know how long I’ll be out for.”

“I’m a grown woman, Peter. I think I can do without a supervisor,” Johona said rakishly. “Besides, with your collection of books,  I’ve got half the Library of Congress at my disposal. I can entertain myself for a few hours.”

“I’ll see you soon, then,” Peter said over his shoulder as he left the kitchen. He made his way back to his room at a lumbering pace, feeling almost as sleepy as he had after drinking Johona’s draught the night before. He wondered if that part of it had longer-lasting effects than the purgatives did. Or maybe he really was that worn out from the morning. Either way, he felt overwhelmingly relieved when he was able to lay back down and let his eyes drift shut. It took only a few minutes for Peter to sink into a deep, dreamless sleep. Time seemed to lose its meaning, and the longer he stayed static, the less he felt like getting up again. He surfaced from his sleep once or twice, but never had the energy to leave it.

Hours passed before he finally awakened again. When he sat up in bed, he saw that the sun had drastically changed its position in the sky. He glanced at the clock across the room, but the sun was glaring off of its face, forcing him to get up and move to read the time. Nearly 5 in the afternoon, it told him. He sighed, almost disappointedly. So much time spent doing absolutely nothing. _Sleep is a cruel human necessity_ , he thought to himself as he left the room and ventured out to find Johona.

The nurse was sitting in the library, just as she had said she would be, leafing through the pages of a treasury of Byronic poetry. She seemed to notice his presence before he noticed hers, looking up to greet him as he entered the room. “Still alive, I see.”

“Just barely,” Peter mumbled. “I can’t believe I stayed down for so long.”

“It was what you needed,” Johona advised. She closed her book, set it down on the table and stood up to address her friend. “I hope you don’t mind that I left the manor for a bit while you were out. I went back into town to pick up a few more things to eat. I’ll try to use them up quickly, so you don’t have perishable things sitting in your pantry, but once I leave, grocery shopping will be entirely up to you.”

“Whatever you thought necessary, I suppose,” he listlessly replied.

“You know, Peter, I was thinking,” she continued, skirting around the coffee table. “It’s probably been long enough for me to examine you again. You should definitely have the treatment out of your system by now.”

That mention, at long last, sparked Peter’s interest. “Could you?”

“Of course I could.” Johona disappeared for a while and shortly returned with her small suitcase in hand. “You know the routine. To the lab.”

“To the lab.”

Peter led the way there, Johona following him a little more intrepidly this time. He’d have to remove his shirt again, she told him, and he went through the same procedure he did the day before. He laid back on top of his flattened shirt and looked at the marks left in his skin where his shirttails were tucked into the waist of his pants. He remained still as Johona took her stethoscope out and set it up against his torso. She set the earpieces in, pressed her forehead against the leather headrest and pushed the metal bell into his abdomen, searching.

Johona spent an ominously long time listening. Peter watched her face as she did, his heart in his throat. Slowly, a line of concern etched itself in between her eyebrows. She pressed harder and harder with the bell, seeming even more disbelieving than the first time she had found signs of life with it. Eventually, she drew her head back and ran a hand through her hair, tugging at it with a distressed hand. “Impossible,” she murmured.

“What is it?” Peter asked her, his throat tightening around the words.

Johona wouldn’t answer him, only stared at the place where the bell of her stethoscope was still pressed to his stomach before looking up at him, her eyes totally despondent. Peter felt his heart turn cold and sink. “It’s still there,” he shakily asserted, “isn’t it?"

Johona pulled the earpieces roughly from her ears. “I don’t know how,” she said insistently. “This treatment has never failed before. It should have worked. I... I just don’t understand.”

“Let me hear it,” Peter said, reaching out for the earpieces. Johona gave them to him willingly and held the stethoscope down as he put them in. Sure enough, the pulse was still there, faint and frantic, throbbing in Peter’s ears just as strongly as ever.

With a sudden, rash movement, Peter tore the earpieces out and let them hit the table’s surface. Johona barely had enough time to pull her equipment away before Peter curled in on himself, ducking his head behind his knees and burying his fingers in his hair. “No,” he whimpered to himself. “No, no no no no no...”

“Peter,” Johona said softly, placing a hand on her friend’s shaking shoulder. At her touch, Peter’s head snapped to attention and he fixed his gaze on her, his eyes wide and startled like those of a frightened animal. He stared at her, breathing shakily for a moment, and when he finally spoke, his words were dripping with betrayal.

“You told me this would work.”

Johona gazed back at him, her face stony with shock. “It does,” she said. “It always does. I don’t know what happened this time. I-I did everything right. Maybe the problem was-”

“What was the problem?!” Peter snapped, trying to sound angry, but panic steadily seeped into his voice.

“I-I’ve never used this treatment on a man before!” Johona shot back. “There might have been something with the dosage, or maybe the balance of ingredients. But I couldn’t change the method.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I made it too potent, I could have killed you, Peter!”

“So what if you did?!” Peter’s voice cracked as he thoughtlessly shrilled out the words. Not a moment after they’d left his lips, he wished he hadn’t said them.

Johona was staring at him, her eyes glassy, face drained of color and mouth hanging open in shock. Peter felt his throat starting to tighten, and his shivering lungs were ready to cough up an apology, but Johona was the first one to speak. “You did not just say that to me,” she said, her gaze unwavering and eerily cold.

“I-I didn’t mean it,” Peter stammered. “Please, Johona. I... I didn’t mean to...”

“Is this what you’ve been up to all this time?” she continued when her friend’s voice choked out of existence. “Is this why you didn’t speak to me for so long?”

“Johona...” he tried to start, but he couldn’t force anything else out past the congealing lump in his throat. In that same second, she reached her arms around him and hastily pulled him close, nearly sweeping him off the table in the process. Suddenly Peter’s face was buried in her shoulder, his arms pinned limply at his sides as Johona held him so tightly he felt his bones would break.

“Walter, I-I can’t believe you,” she scolded him, a waver in her voice. “I can’t believe how stupid you are. You’re an idiot, Walter. A goddamn idiot!”

“I didn’t mean it, Johona,” Peter murmured. “I... I don’t really want to die. I haven’t been trying to. I promise.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“I was scared,” he choked out, then rethought the sentence. “I _am_ scared. I didn’t want to... I-I can’t... You _know_ I won’t be able to do this.”

Johona’s hand traced gently across his back and her hold started to loosen. “Then we’ll try it again. I’ll make the treatment more powerful. I’ll make sure you won’t metabolize it this time.”

“And go through that all over again?” Peter said lifelessly as he pulled weakly away from her.

“It’s the best option I have to offer, unless you’ve got any better ideas.”

“I...” He sighed and rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. “I don’t think I would be able to handle a repeat of this morning. Besides that, there’s everything else that I’ve already tried. What if we go at it again and it still doesn’t work?”

“So you don’t want to keep trying?”

“I can’t. I’m tired, Johona. I’ve had enough of this.”

Johona sighed, crestfallen. Her hand overlapped Peter’s on the lab table, her fingers tapping pensively at his wrist. “Then what do you propose we do?”

“Something else,” he replied, at a total loss. “Poison can’t kill it, obviously. I’ve tried my solutions, then yours, and nothing has worked. At this rate, all that’s left is to remove it.”

“What?”

“Remove it, Johona,” Peter said again, his face hardened with determination. “Cut it out of me.”

“No!” Johona shrilly replied, totally aghast. “I’m not a licensed surgeon, Peter, and we have no anesthetic. If I put you under a knife, there’s no telling what could be screwed up. An attempt at surgery would hurt like hell, and you could end up with an infection or a misplaced organ or something worse that I can’t even think of. Besides...” She poked at his stomach. “We don’t even know _where_ in your body this thing is residing.”

Peter recoiled from the sudden touch. “Please, don’t do that ever again.”

“I’ll do it as many times as I want until you pull yourself together, Walter,” she retorted. “So stop asking me to poison you and stop asking me to cut you up. I came here because I thought you wanted help, not an assisted suicide.”

Peter looked at his friend and felt his chest seize up. It was as if the world had suddenly sharpened around him. Johona’s eyes were burning holes into his, the table under him felt cold, and the air in the lab was stale and suffocating. He was too aware of his surroundings. More than anything, he was too aware of himself. His pulse, every shaky, haggard breath he took, and the crushing weight of the knowledge that there was something living inside of him. Something had come into existence, and all of it was his fault.

“You could always just carry it,” Johona quietly suggested.

“Are you insane?” Peter asked, the question meant to be scathing, but all the power gone from his voice. “We don’t know how this is going to turn out. We don’t know where it came from, where it is, or what it’s doing there. For Christ’s sake, Johona, we don’t even know if this thing is _human_.”

“But we know we can’t kill it,” she added for him. “Not without killing you first, anyway.”

Peter bit his lip and looked away from her, his fingers clutching nervously at the hem of his flattened shirt. He didn’t want to go through with this, but it didn’t seem like he had any choice left. Either he waited this out and hoped it didn’t go horribly wrong, or he killed himself trying to abort the thing, and he’d just about had enough of the latter option. “Is that really all we have left? It seems so much like giving up.”

“You’re not giving up any more than if you had decided to just die instead.” Johona put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Think of it like an experiment. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’ll still have to be willing to wait things out to see a result.”

“If that’s what it is,” Peter said, “then this is the most sideways experiment I’ve ever been a part of.”

Johona exhaled, the noise almost a laugh, and Peter saw her relief clear on her face. She gripped his shoulder once more and gave it a gentle nudge. “Good,” she said, a small, heartened smile on her face. “Now put your shirt on and let’s get out of this dismal place. We can keep thinking about this tomorrow.”

Peter nodded without a word and stood up from the table. He shook his shirt out and put his arms through the sleeves. His fingers grazed over his stomach as he fastened the buttons, then again as he tucked the hem into the waist of his pants. His core grew tense with each fleeting contact.  It was a strange reaction, unlike anything he’d felt before. He found himself looking down at his body, studying its shape and the steady rise and fall of his breath. Gently, he placed his hand over the surface of his abdomen, his palm resting flat against it, and tried to feel something there.

He felt nothing, only the instinctual tightness in his core again and his muscles moving under his palm. The calm didn’t fool him, though. He knew there was something there. Something was alive, and he would have to go on living with it still inside of him. And that knowledge alone was absolutely terrifying.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH. WHAT'S THIS. ANOTHER TWIST. OOOOHOHOHOHOHO  
> So yeah. This is a thing that's happening now. Might want to get used to it, because there's over 20 more chapters of it in the future.  
> It's 3:23 AM and I don't want to exist right now. I don't know why I'm so bad at sleeping. Whatever. I hope you enjoyed my dumb shitty writing.  
> I should stop.  
> See you next chapter, losers.


	6. In Advancement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So earlier today I found out that it's the Bennet twins' birthday today. Or, technically, yesterday was their birthday, I guess, since it's 1:30 in the morning and I can't function like a human being. Anyway, wishes to those two, I guess. Happy birthday, here's a really corrupted interpretation of something you spent years of hard work creating, stripped of all canon plot devices and distilled into a purgative toxin of angst, emotions and fetishism.  
> I ate pancakes at 12:30 AM and now I kind of feel sick but that's not stopping me from posting.  
> Sorry about mentioning fetishism there, it isn't really.  
> Or is it.  
> Bullshit aside, this story, by the time I'm posting this, has reached 90 hits. I know that the way hits are counted on this website, that could definitely be the 0.4 readers I might have returning to check for updates every few days, although I'm pretty sure I confirmed last week that updates are going to be Fridays at ass o'clock in the morning from this point onward. I don't know if anything is significant, but that's probably the case. Either way, 90 is almost 100. That's not that significant, I guess. Go ahead and tell all your nasty friends about this if you want.  
> Anyway, I never mentioned that I have a tumblr. To protect my pitiful ego, I'll forward you all to my shitpost blog, imbeingamotherfuckingsorcerer. Send all the offensive anon asks you want. I feel like there might be a lot of things that need to be explained that I probably won't explain at all.  
> I think I mentioned once before that if you want to post about this story anywhere, please use blacklisted tags like "sexpg" and the tag "fic: artificial life and other unnatural things," or to make things simpler, just "fic: artificial life."  
> Gently handcuff me to a parking meter. Bye.
> 
> (If you haven't seen the list of fake Fifty Shades of Grey quotes, you should.)

 

The maids were in the next morning, so Peter and Johona had to keep their conversations confined until Miriam and her staff left. The study didn’t feel nearly private enough, Peter estimated. The hallway was just outside, and anyone passing through could have caught onto a shred of what they said. Even a few vague words felt too incriminating for anyone to hear. That being the case, after he had organized the stray documents in his study more hurriedly than he’d taken to drinking after Delilah, he brought Johona to the lab with him. After the events of the past night, they had much to discuss.

“For the record, I have no intention of going back to Willcox,” Johona affirmatively told him. 

“But you have your job to worry about,” Peter pointed out, not taking his eyes off the delicate joints in his creation’s neck. He had missed conversing with Johona as he worked. “You can’t just stay in San Diego until this whole issue irons itself out.”

“If that’s what it comes to, I will, unless you have any better ideas. I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone. God knows what you might do without me here to stop you.”

“We’ve been over this, Johona. I’m not committing suicide.”

“You might be saying that now, but things are going to change. I’ve seen this happen before, and I hate to be have to tell you this, but if everything goes over how I think it will, your condition is going to get a lot worse.”

“Then what are you going to tell your employer?” 

“I could always ask for maternity leave.”

Peter placed down the screwdriver in his hand and stared daggers at Johona, who grinned and put a hand to her mouth to cover up a snicker. “I’m being serious,” he insisted. 

“I’ll work something out,” she went on, still smiling. “He already knows that I’m out here because you were sick. I can take that excuse as far as it needs to go. Of course, he won’t pay me for an absence longer than two weeks, but I don’t plan on letting the issue stagnate for that long.”

“He won’t be asking specifically how long you’ll be gone?”

“He might, but when I went to him about your first message, I told him I didn’t know what was wrong. So if you had, say, a mysterious illness that no one was able to cure...” She trailed off, waiting for Peter to finish the thought.

“But that still won’t solve the problem of you keeping your employment. If you tell him you have to stay with me, he might just let you go from his staff rather than trying to find loopholes to keep you in.  I won’t have you losing your job over me.”

“And I don’t plan on losing it. I’m sure I’ll be able to work something out.”

Her answer didn’t reassure Peter very much, but he begrudgingly accepted it and went on tinkering with his creation. The micromachines in her neck and shoulders were almost finished. His progress was a relief, at the very least. Building machines was still something he could do. He knew that he wouldn’t have taken so long to finish them if it weren’t for all the time he’d been forced to spend trying to capture blue matter.

“On another hand, we’re going to have more issues to take care of, once you  _ really _ get on your way.”

“Like what?” Peter asked absently.

“Clothes, for one thing,” Johona stated. “I mean, look at you. You’ve already started gaining weight. Your clothes are so tight on you.”

Peter looked up again, feeling vaguely offended. “Are you calling me fat?”

“Not really, but don’t think I didn’t notice. It’s happening, whether you want it to or not, and it’s only going to get worse in the future.”

She wasn’t lying at all, and Peter had already known about what was happening to him, but that didn’t mean he liked hearing it said out loud. “I’m not interested in going shopping for a whole new wardrobe every few weeks, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then how about this,” she suggested. “If we buy a few garments, say, a week’s worth of them or so, in a size bigger than necessary, we could alter them and keep the extra fabric in each. So if one needs to be made any bigger or smaller, we can work it out that way. How are your sewing skills?”

“They’re decent, I suppose,” Peter said indifferently. He’d used them before to create protective skins and coverings for his creations. He didn’t think they were anything impressive, but for someone like him, who normally had not even the basest knowledge of needlework, he was far above average. “Do you think you’ll be able to predict how much I’m going to change?”

“It’s different for everyone, but I can make an approximation. For most people in your range, there’s a total gain of around thirty pounds, and as for your stomach...” She shrugged. “That’s always variable. We’ll just need to remember to leave you some breathing room.”

“I could always just wear shirts that are too big. That part is less of a problem than others will be.”

“That would work,” Johona agreed. “Might be a little inconvenient until you start to fill them out, though.”

Peter nodded, trying to listen, but absolutely desperate to put the thought out of his head. This discussion was imperative to have, and he was more than well aware of that fact. It didn’t change how he felt, though. When he heard Johona talk about it, he couldn’t help but imagine what would eventually happen to his body. Now whatever was living inside him was too small to be seen, but it wouldn’t stay that way. It would grow eventually, push at his boundaries and force itself to be acknowledged by everyone who looked at him. 

Unwillingly, he imagined himself with his stomach visibly swollen, his skin stretched taut over it, his back strained out of shape from trying to hold the weight, all his bones and muscles aching from trying to hold together a structure that was doing what shouldn’t have been possible. It was frightening to think about. He just couldn’t picture himself like that. It was too surreal.

“What are we going to do about Miriam’s staff, though?” he asked, more to get his mind off of its current subject than anything else.

“Now that’s going to be complicated,” Johona agreed. “I didn’t think you’d have the heart to fire her.”

“That, and there’s no way in hell that I’d be able to live in this house without them to keep it in order,” he pointed out. “But I’ll never be able to keep all of this quiet if I’m seeing them every other morning. You wouldn’t believe the way some of her employees talk.” He paused for a second, thinking. “Do you think you can be an emissary for me?”

“How so? You want me relaying orders to them?”

“I will when I start becoming too obvious to hide.”

Johona nodded her understanding. “I’ll do it, but you should know that I’m not the best at being commanding.”

“You seem to be doing just fine with pushing  _ me _ around.”

“That’s different. I  _ know  _ you. I’ve never had servants before.”

“They aren’t really so much servants as a hired service,” he clarified. “You don’t have to be over-the-top about it. Just tell them whatever I tell you the same way you might give orders to one of your colleagues.”

“And that’s how you treat your hired help?”

Peter shrugged. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No. I’ve just always figured that you weren’t the demanding sort.”

“Probably because I’ve never been served before, either.”

Johona hummed her agreement, then was quiet for a while, patiently watching Peter work. The silence was fine, for a time, but it soon started to encroach on Peter’s thoughts. The room felt empty now without their voices to fill it. The lab had always been silent like this, ever since he had purchased the mansion and set up his workplace there, and he had never been partial to the almost eerie lack of sound in the cool, spacious sublevel. He’d had the sounds of metal and torches to keep him company, and the steady background noise of the furnace warming the air and the boiler keeping the manor’s supply of hot water at a constant temperature, but he would have gladly traded it for a conversation. 

“I like talking to you while I work,” he said. 

“Really?” Johona said bemusedly. “I would have thought you worked better without all the noise.”

“That’s the common convention, but I tend to get lost when things are too quiet.”

“Your mind drifts to other things?” He could hear the smile in her voice.

“You could say that,” Peter responded flatly. He glanced at the small cart that held his tools. The metal lattice on the side, shamelessly decorated with pictures of Delilah, wasn’t something that Johona could have missed. He thanked the heavens that at least she had chosen not to mention it.

For so long, he’d been betraying her. He’d been using her memory as a tool, using her ghost to lure people in and give him the shallow comforts of intoxication and human touch. Once upon a time, he’d claimed he loved Delilah more than anything, and he had gone to such lengths to win her over. Even now, ages after she was gone from his life, he kept working on the project that was once intended to be her gift. But it was no consolation. It didn’t make up for what he’d done. He had gone back so many times on his promises to her, and now... now he was...

_ Forgive me, Delilah _ , he thought hopelessly.  _ I seem to have lost my head along with you. _

“Is something wrong?” Johona asked all of a sudden, dragging Peter out of his reverie.

“N-no,” he quickly replied. “Just daydreaming a little. That’s all.”

* * *

By the time evening came, there were minimal details of a plan hashed out. Only the most vital aspects had been worked out yet, and even then, most of them were still tentative. Johona would need Peter’s measurements to buy and alter fitting clothing for him. She might even need to go into the city on her own the next day if he happened to be feeling too self-conscious to come with her. She still needed to contact her employer to work out a solution for her absence from her job, and she was sure by the day’s end that he had at least read the telegram she had sent him in the afternoon. If he responded as fast as she hoped he would,  something could be arranged by the end of the week. As for Miriam and her staff, all of that remained to be seen.

In the middle of it, Johona had managed to make a rough estimate of Peter’s progression. He’d had his last intimate encounter at some point in April, and if the inciting incident had really been what he seemed to believe it was, then she speculated that he was about seven weeks along, possibly eight if he’d made a mistake in relaying his story to her. He’d shown her the data that he had collected when he first noticed the difference in his weight. She weighed him again, just to be sure, and found that he had put on another two pounds since the last measurement he had taken. 

By her standards, he seemed to be progressing normally. He would likely put on a total of ten pounds by the time his first three months were over, then more in small increments as things went on. Johona had her expectations laid out for her like a gridded map. There was, of course, always the possibility that Peter wasn’t really pregnant. But he’d been the first one to figure it out, and Johona knew what she’d heard. A fetal pulse was not an easy sound to imitate.

She had convinced him once again to go to bed at the same time as she did. He still didn’t seem to have taken a liking to it, but she was sure he would once the baby started to sap his strength while he was awake and move incessantly while he tried to rest. Women had complained to her about it before. Despite never having even come close to experiencing it for herself, she knew better than most that childbearing was an arduous task. Peter already had a proclivity towards sleeping late. She hoped that his sleep cycle wouldn’t become  _ too _ disturbed once the fatigue and insomnia started to set in.

That was why it was more than a bit surprising when, a few days into her stay,  a distant noise woke her up at some ungodly hour of the night. 

Startled out of sleep, Johona raised her head from the nest of blankets surrounding her. The room was pitch-black, and it barely changed when she nudged the window curtain aside to let some moonlight in. She spent a minute fumbling around for a book of matches, tore one out and lit a candle. Living in a town as small as Willcox, with screech owls and coyotes marauding around and caterwauling in the dark,  she was used to being woken up at night. Holding the candle at a distance, she wandered intrepidly out into the hallway.

The cavernous mansion seemed emptier in the dark. Even the subtle  _ stick  _ of Johona’s bare feet padding across the tiles seemed to make itself more known. The flickering light of her candle reflected off the walls, casting the empty space with looming shadows. Her home in Willcox was so much smaller than this. It didn’t look any different in the dark, but something about the fact that everything here was almost twice the size of what she was used to made the scenario unsettling. 

There was nothing in the upstairs hallway, nor that she could see from the staircase to the foyer. She traveled down to the first landing. Nothing seemed out of place. Then she noticed the weak orange light that seeped out from the doorway to the kitchen.

Moving stealthily, Johona crept slowly towards the kitchen. She kept her back to the wall, her nervous heart hammering in her ears.  _ This manor is so far out of the way _ , she thought impulsively.  _ If someone had come this far from the city... Peter’s closest neighbor has to be at least a quarter of a mile away.  If someone broke in... a murderer or a thief or something...  _

As she breached the corner that led into the kitchen, Johona’s hand drifted over the counter. There had to be something there- a weapon of some kind- that she could quietly grab to keep on hand if she needed it. There was someone here with her. Who, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t take any chances. On the other side of the room, the pantry door was open. The candle sat just behind the door, lighting up its silhouette, and someone behind it was rustling in the shelves, shifting things around, apparently in search of something. Suddenly it stopped. Johona froze for a second, waiting for the stranger to turn around, but nothing moved. Hastily, she reached for the edge of the door and pulled it back.

There was a scuttle, then a crash, then...

“Gah!”

Standing wide-eyed with his back pressed against the pantry shelves and a hand to his chest was Peter. His face was pallid with shock in the candlelight. He was the one who had cried out in surprise. A few boxes and canisters had been knocked from the shelves. One of them happened to be the glass container where he had stored what remained of the batch of lemon-cranberry scones that had appeared on the stove that morning. In his free hand, he happened to be holding a half-eaten one of them.

“Oh, Christ. It was just you,” Peter said, huffing out a sigh of relief. “Scare me half to death, that’s fine.”

“What in the blazes are you doing?” Johona asked, squinting at her friend in the weak light. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I didn’t really bother to check,” he sarcastically replied. 

“Did you hear that noise?”

“What noise?” Peter nervously asked, but a second later the anxious suspicion on his face faded from sight. “Oh, wait. That was me,” he sighed. “I hit my head on one of the hanging pots. My candle went out, and I had to feel around in the dark for matches.”

“Thank goodness,” Johona sighed in relief a second before she went back to scrutinizing him. “What are you doing down here, anyway?”

“I’m eating, obviously.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Peter stared at her, as if he had only just realized what time it was. He shrugged noncommittally and glanced down at the scone in his hand. “I just woke up, and I wanted something sweet in the worst way. ” He laughed a little. “I don’t know what came over me. I remembered these were down here, and...”

“I see.” A smile crept onto Johona’s face. “How many of those have you had?”

“This is my second,” Peter admitted a little shamefully, holding up the scone in his hand. “No wonder I’ve been gaining weight. If this keeps up, I’ll look like Moby Dick before I know it.”

“So this has happened before?”

Peter paused and took a bite of scone. “No, actually,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever woken up like this.”

Johona laughed. “So the cravings have finally set in.”

“Is that what this is?” Peter seemed unamused by her assertions. 

“Unless you’ve become some kind of scone-seeking werewolf, yes. You’re having cravings.” Johona put her candle down on the counter. “Mind if I join you in there?”

“Not at all.” Peter stuck the last of the second scone in his mouth, took a step to the side and put back a few of the scattered containers to make space for Johona. He picked up the scone container, which thankfully hadn’t broken when it fell, and held it out to her. “Want one?”

“Might as well.” She lifted one from the batch and replaced the lid.

Peter gently placed the container back onto the shelf where it had been before, taking care to pick one more out of the dish before leaving it be. He pursed his lips and exhaled, looking down at the last scone in his hand, as if promising himself that it would be his last for the day. “We’re going to be out of scones before tomorrow morning if I keep going like this.”

“Doesn’t one of the maids leave you a new batch of things every day they come in?” Johona asked as she sat down on the floor, her back to the shelves. Peter followed suit.

“That’s something new, actually. And I don’t know which one of them is doing it.”

“So you weren’t requesting it or anything?”

“No. One day, a few months ago, they just started showing up, and they haven’t stopped since.”

Johona looked at the partially-eaten scone in her hand. “Maybe you should take up baking.”

Peter scoffed. “As if I didn’t have enough on my hands. I’m building three automatons, harnessing a new energy source, and now you want me to become a pastry chef.”

“Don’t forget to include  _ carrying a child _ in all of that drivel.”

“Good god,” he deadpanned through a mouthful of scone. “You don’t have to remind me every time we speak, Johona.”

“And what’s stopping me?” she tossed back at him. “Sometimes I honestly feel like if I don’t remind you, you’ll forget.”

“What would the harm in that be? It’s not like knowing or not knowing would change me very much.”

“It’s only to remind you to be a little more careful than usual. And to take care of yourself, too. I could tell what a fantastic job you were doing without me here.”

“Are you still stuck on that?”

“Maybe a little bit.” Johona inched her foot across the floor and placed her toes over Peter’s. “I worried about you for a long time. Do you know that?”

“No,” Peter admitted sadly, gazing at the place where her foot touched his. She must have been making him feel like a child, the way she comforted him as if she were his sister. “I should have thought of you before I shut myself out. And everyone else, for that matter. I’m sorry that I didn’t. I was selfish, and upset, and I couldn’t think rationally.”

“I understand why you acted the way you did.” She finished off her scone and folded her arms over her chest. “Grief is a rough emotion to deal with.That doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you for it. But I understand it.”

“Thank you.” Johona wasn’t sure what he said it for, but he must have felt it was necessary.

“I’m only doing what any halfway decent friend would,” she said solemnly. Johona turned to look at him. He was staring at the opposite wall of the darkened kitchen, not seeming to focus on anything in particular. She inched a little closer to him and raised one hand up from the floor to reach it towards him. “Hey, Peter?”

He glanced over at her. “Hm?”

“Are you still scared?”

Peter scooted around to face her. His eyes had gone glassy. “No, I’m not,” he said quietly, as if it were a secret and there was someone around to hear it. “I’m absolutely terrified.”

“You know I’ll do everything I can to make sure you come out of this in one piece, right?”

Slowly, hesitantly, Peter nodded his head. “Yes,” he said. “I know.” His gaze dropped to the floor before he went back to staring at the wall and finished the last of his scone.

“We should probably be getting back to bed,” Johona pointed out. “We can’t dawdle around in the middle of the night if either of us wants to be functional tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” Peter agreed. Without another word, they both stood up, haphazardly swept up the crumbs they’d left and traveled back upstairs. They parted ways in the hallway. Before Peter left, Johona made sure to catch him with one last embrace, just to drive in the point that she had made in the pantry. She would take care of him. Peter could trust her. He had to, and there was no way that she was going to let him forget it.

* * *

Things seemed to be easier once the all of the plans were set in motion.

By some miracle, Johona had convinced Peter to come with her to pick up his new sets of clothing. It was an awkward experience, to say the least. The entire time, Peter felt as though he were being gawked at. Johona had reassured him over and over again that no one was staring because of what he thought they knew. Even the basest of people know that it’s rude to assume that someone is expecting by judging from a single glance, she informed him. She still conceded to go home as soon as their errands were run. 

Fixing the pieces wouldn’t go quickly, considering that Peter didn’t own a sewing machine, but the issue wasn’t pressing just yet. Peter’s clothing could still handle another inch or two on his waistline before the seams started breaking. They kept the projects in the lab, alongside the automaton. Peter was making some remarkable progress on her. Of course, she was nothing but a sculpture piece without enough matter in her core to power her up, but it was better than letting her sit and rust. The engineer figured that she would rather be awakened with a finished, functional body anyway.

Johona spent a whole week sending telegrams back and forth with her employer, trying to negotiate with him and finagle some way to keep her job. Fortune seemed to be on their side when it came to that part of the plan, since it went far easier than expected. As it turned out, the doctor had an associate in a smaller city just outside of San Diego, which she could reach by train in about half an hour. He would refer her, he promised, and when her friend regained his health, heaven willing that he would, she could return to her position in Willcox. 

The only hole in the plot was that Johona would need to leave the manor early, before the maids arrived for their shift every other day. She couldn’t serve as Peter’s emissary when she had a job to keep up with. So he would have to keep giving commands on his own. He was unwilling to accept the responsibility at first, insecure as he was, but there didn’t seem to be any choice in the matter. So he surrendered, and he and Johona left the issue to be worked out when it became more urgent- in other words, if the maids ever started to suspect something. And Peter was convinced that they already had.

Miriam had been more concerned with him than ever. Each day she came in, she asked Peter how he was feeling, if he’d seen a doctor, if he had gotten medication for his sickness, and all manner of other questions. He always told her the same thing; that he was managing, even though he hadn’t managed to find a medicine that worked, and he was sure that he would get better before long. She didn’t seem to believe him when he told her, but she accepted the answers he gave her with a grain of salt, just as any good maid would. And their conversations always ended the same way: She had connections, if he happened to need them. All he had to do was say something, and she would put in a word for him.

Peter knew that there was little reason for him to be so suspicious of the maids. As far as they knew, he was suffering from some miserable, unidentified disease. It was only natural for them to pity him and discuss his faltering health when they thought he wasn’t around to hear. None of them had tried to interfere in his life or work over it. Miriam was the only one who had ever been forward about her concerns. Well, there was her, and then there was Iris.

It should have been something that Peter saw coming. The way Iris fawned over him, seeming almost too eager to serve, the extraneous pains she was willing to take in order to earn the approval of her manager and employer... all of these things should have tipped Peter off that she would take as much of an interest in him as Miriam, if not more. 

Iris was shy and subtle in the way that she pried. If she and Peter met on some off chance, she asked about his condition. She didn’t fire nearly as many questions at him as Miriam did, and when she came close, she would unfailingly apologize for being so intrusive. Peter didn’t mind, since Iris’s innocent demeanor was something of a weakness to him. But he couldn’t help noticing that he had been seeing a lot more of her lately. She seemed to appear out of thin air wherever he happened to be. When he stepped out of his study, Iris would be scrubbing the tiles in the hallway outside. If he went to the kitchen, she would be busy sweeping the floor and clearing the soot from the stove. On the rare occasions that he came out of his lab before the maids left, he would find Iris checking for cobwebs in the library shelves, not seeming to care that his complaint of spiders had been issued and resolved weeks ago. 

Her habits didn’t bother Peter too much, but he still felt there was something questionable about it. She certainly seemed dedicated in her efforts to keep him close at all times. Perhaps, he hypothesized, she wanted to be nearby if something were to ever happen to him. Any maid worth her salt wouldn’t let her employer suddenly collapse from sickness without offering him her aid. If he imagined it that way, he found what she did reassuring, in a twisted sort of way. But it still made Peter wonder. Iris never did cease to amaze him.

“She’s turned into your shadow,” Johona pointed out to him one evening when they were both sitting by the parlor fireplace with a pot of tea and deck of cards.

“Only as much as she can,” he replied, laying down an ace of spades. “She isn’t disregarding any obvious restrictions, if you’ve noticed. Iris has always been careful about that. She won’t follow me past a closed door.”

“Doesn’t it concern you, though?” Johona laid down a jack of hearts and swept Peter’s cards into her deck. “You were the one who was so suspicious of the maids in the first place.”

“I still am suspicious. But with Iris, it’s the same case as Miriam. She cares a little too much about impressing me for her own good.”

“It’s understandable, when you put it that way. But it sometimes gets me thinking that they’re making assumptions about the two of us.”

Peter lowered his cards, perplexed. “They know who you are. Why would they ever start thinking that way?”

“Oh, please. It’s no different from what everyone else does. If a man does so much as look at a woman, they’re already married in the mind of the observer, and it doesn’t make a difference whether the assumption is reasonable or not. Now, when a woman suddenly starts living in a man’s house, cooking for him, giving requests to his maids, being intimate and friendly and everything else with him, their imaginations can run wild in ways that you wouldn’t dare to dream of. And a  _ Native _ woman, for that matter.” Johona scoffed. “I can’t even imagine what they think you’ve been doing with me. They must think I’m your mail-order bride or something.”

“Why is that with you, this is always where the topics of conversation go?”

His friend shrugged. “It’s the way people think, Peter. They find it entertaining. Don’t pretend you don’t do the exact same thing.”

Resignedly, he forced himself to turn his attention back to the cards. Johona, as usual, was not at all wrong, and Peter’s now-checkered past and present condition were irrefutable proof. “I really don’t much care what the maids think is going on between the two of us,” he said. “I’m more concerned about what they think is going on with  _ me _ . If they ever find out that I’m...” He stopped to rephrase his words. “If they find out the truth, or worse yet, find out  _ how it happened _ , they would leave me for sure.”

“You could always take up on Miriam’s offers.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. She still thinks it’s an illness. But she doesn’t lie about how many contacts she has. She’s familiar with just about everyone in the city. I can’t tell her the truth. I’d never be able to get another maid service in San Diego for as long as I live.” Peter paused, thinking. “How far along am I, last time you checked?”

Johona tapped her fingertips on her cards and shrugged. “I can only estimate, but judging by what I’ve observed from you, I’d say you were at around ten weeks.”

“And how long will it be before my... um, before I start to...” He rested his head on his hand and raked his fingers through his hair. He just didn’t know how to say it without making it sound ridiculous.

“Before you start to show, you mean?” Johona suggested with a smirk.

“Yes, that’s it. Before I start to show.”  _ Show _ . He liked the sound of it. It was so vague, he could almost pretend it meant something else.

“That one is going to be a tough guess to make. Very few of my patients have become obvious at the same time. I’ve had a few cases where you could tell right away, and some others who barely looked any different at all. Generally, it’s about another month or so before any obvious changes take place. With you, though, it’ll be a little more difficult.” She leaned forward to study him a little more closely. “You’ve gained weight, but not enough to change you very much. You won’t have a whole lot of cover if you start to swell. This is what you get for being so skinny.” A wicked grin spread across her face, and she lunged over the cards between them to poke playfully at Peter’s stomach.

He reeled back, startled, and his hands moved to cover up his midsection. “Hey! I told you not to-”

“Relax! Relax, already,” his friend said, her voice bubbling with laughter. “I’m not going to hurt the baby.”

“I don’t give a damn how hard you poke me, just... I’m already insecure about it. I don’t need you to be pointing it out all the time,” he said as he balanced himself again. “And I honestly wish you would stop calling it that.”

“Calling it what? A baby?” Johona laughed through her genuine confusion. “I’m only calling it what it is.”

“We don’t know that.” Peter folded his legs and leaned forward to address her. “Remember the kind of work I’m doing.”

“I thought you were taking a break from trying to capture blue matter.”

“I’ve been slowing down, but I haven’t stopped. And I don’t believe that I look any different from how I did when I was handling it for hours on end, every day,” he grimly explained. “I’m obviously still being affected by the radiation. And if it’s still changing me, it could be changing the thing that I’m carrying as well.”

“You still seem human to me, Peter.”

“You say that as if we even know that much about this thing.” He glanced pointedly at his body.

“Well, I’m not sure about you, but that the pulse I heard coming from inside you sounded pretty human.” She laid down the next card from her deck, conquering Peter’s last set and sweeping the pile from the space between them. “Looks like you’ll have to draw again.” He moved his hand to comply, and a moment later she added, “And you might want to get a little more comfortable about me touching your stomach. I’m going to have to do it a lot in order to properly keep track of you.”

Peter didn’t respond, only picked up a new card to add to his deck and continue the game. It seemed to him that Johona had become dead-set on treating him like one of her patients. He had no right to blame her for it, though. She was a nurse, and she was doing her job. It was only natural. And since that was the case, there definitely wouldn’t be any hope of reasoning with her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I don't know what kind of card game they were playing, because I honestly don't know shit about cards.  
> So here's a nice lull chapter after trigger warnings in the last one. Get ready, because jumps like these are going to be frequent.  
> Thanks again to cicada_S, volatileSoloiste and Feep from ff.net for putting up with me and my excitement over this stupid bullshit story of which I am horribly ashamed but also sort of proud. Why is this mix of emotions the only way I feel about anything I do? I may never know.  
> See you next chapter.


	7. A Suspicious Progression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never do seem to make these updates at a reasonable time of night.  
> Anyway, here's more garbage. I have next to nothing important to say in this note. Thank you, I guess, to volatileSoloiste, cicada_s and Feep on ff.net for supporting me in this nasty little escapade. I hope this update has at least some kind of an emotional effect on you guys, because it certainly had one on me. Honestly I'm pretty sure that I'm the one who gets the most emotional about this stupid story out of everyone else who knows about it. That's probably really narcissistic of me and I know that it doesn't merit that much attention, but...  
> FUCK. I WROTE THIS. TELL ME HOW IT MAKES YOU FEEL, DAMMIT.  
> So. Tumblr. imbeingamotherfuckingsorcerer. Please also remember to use blacklisted tags if you feel like shitposting. After this chapter, you just might.  
> Also, CONTENT WARNING. I'm sorry in advance for how graphic my descriptions are gonna get in future chapters and how much I'll be focusing on certain things. It's just how this extended shitpost turned out.  
> I give up, just read the fucking chapter.

 

That morning, Peter wasn’t able to dredge himself out of sleep early enough, and thus he was awakened by Iris knocking at his door.

“Mr. Walter?” Her tone was timid and courteous, as usual. “Are you awake, sir? Miriam wants to see you.”

He wriggled himself loose from the sheets that had twisted around him in the night and tried to sit up. Immediately, his guts lurched and he found himself doubled over with a hand clapped to his mouth. He hadn’t even eaten yet, but his stomach already seemed dead-set on emptying itself. He choked down the urge to gag and tried to speak. “I-I’m awake, Iris. I’ll... I’ll be with you in a-”

He never finished. As soon as his stomach registered that his mouth was open, it squeezed itself into a painful knot. He choked, his throat convulsing hard enough to make his eyes water. A pitiful squeak slipped past his lips as he quickly shut his mouth again, trying to hold himself steady. He looked to the door, and he could practically sense Iris’s suspicion. There was no way that she hadn’t heard that.

A second passed before she spoke up again. “A-are you alright, Mr. Walter?” she hesitantly asked.

“Y-yes, everything’s fine, I just-” Once again, he choked on bile before he could finish. He coughed, his throat burning. This was not going well. He shouldn’t have tried to get up so fast.

“D-do you want me to get Miriam, sir?”

“No, th-that won’t be necessary.” He had to force the words out one at a time, his speech going stilted as he did. “C-could you... can you just... wait a moment where you are?”

“Of course, Mr. Walter,” Iris readily replied. That reassured him enough to let him stay still until the sharp edge of nausea started to dull. It took him a few minutes to feel he was able move again, and his stomach seemed to flip over every time he did, but he couldn’t leave Iris to loiter out in the hallway waiting for him. He had slept in only his pajama pants, since the weather was growing too hot for him to sleep with his nightshirt on as well. He picked up it up from the end of his bed and hastily buttoned it before staggering over to the door. The hinges creaked as he pushed it open a few inches. Iris stood just outside, looking off into the distance as she patiently awaited his emergence. “Iris?” he croaked.

The maid spun around to face him, and her eyes went wide as soon as they met with his. “O-oh my,” she stuttered in surprise. “M-Mr. Walter...”

With an embarrassed sigh, he put a hand to his head and ran his fingers through his rat’s nest of hair. “I know. I must be a sight right now,” he said haggardly. “Listen, I... I’m really not feeling well this morning. Would you mind giving Miriam my requests for today?” Iris nodded, wordless and enthusiastic, waiting to hear her message. “In addition to the routine, Johona needs to have her clothing laundered. She’s been taking it to a place in town, as far as I know, but I feel like I should do her a favor. She keeps it in a striped canvas bag in the extra bedroom down the hall. You won’t miss it,” he explained. “And tell Miriam not to send anyone to clean the study. I’m in the middle of reworking some blueprints, and I’ve left out a lot of documents in a very specific arrangement. I know I usually clear the place out before you girls go in, but I can’t this time.”

“Right. Johona’s laundry, bedroom down the hall. No one in the study,” Iris repeated back to him. “Anything else?”

“I don’t believe so,” he said, and with that affirmation, the maid turned her eyes to the floor and started back toward the staircase. But before she could go far, Peter called out to her again. “Iris, wait.”

As soon as he had spoken, she stopped in her tracks and turned around. “Yes, Mr. Walter?”

“Johona wouldn’t happen to have left already, would she?”

Iris took the time to return to the bedroom door and address her employer directly, but Peter saw the nervous look on her face before she spoke. “I-I’m afraid she has. She was going out just as we arrived.”

“Oh. Isn’t that delightful,” Peter deadpanned to himself. “Damn, I really could have used her help right about now.” He rubbed his throbbing temples with his fingertips, thinking. It took a moment for him to register that Iris was still standing in the doorway, her liquid brown eyes fixed intently on him. “Iris, can I ask a huge favor of you?”

The maid nodded, seeming only too eager to comply. “Anything at all, Mr. Walter.”

“There’s a green ceramic jar in the pantry, on the middle shelf where I keep the teas. It’s full of loose leaves. Could you put some in a strainer and steep it for me? It’s a blend that Johona made. It helps manage my... er, nauseous episodes.”

“Of course,” Iris obediently replied. “How hot do you like your water to be?”

“Probably best if you boil it first and let it cool. That particular mixture can take a long time to steep.”

Iris nodded her understanding, then quickly turned on her toes and scurried back downstairs. With the maid gone, Peter drew away from the doorway and slumped back over to his bed, taking care to leave the door open for Iris, whenever she would return. He weakly pushed the sheets aside and laid down on the mattress, breathing heavily and trying to ignore his rapidly turning stomach. He leaned back against the pillows, not quite sitting, but upright enough to make vomiting just a little harder.

It took only a few minutes for Iris to reappear at his bedroom door. Even with the door cracked open, she still felt the need to knock. She peeked apprehensively through the sliver of space between the door and its frame, trying to find her employer in the room softly lit by filtered sun. The image was almost comical. It made Peter smile, despite how he felt. “Come in,” he said, and Iris did as she was told.

“I hope it isn’t still too hot,” she said as she stepped gingerly past the door. She held a teacup balanced on a saucer, steam billowing up from its rim. A small pastry had been wedged onto the saucer as well, Peter noted as she gently set it down on his bedside table. “I-I took the liberty of bringing a biscuit for you as well. In case your appetite comes back.”

“Thank you, Iris.” Peter sighed with gratitude and inched himself a little further back into the pillows. He reached for the teacup and lifted it carefully from the saucer. The ceramic was warm in his hands, but didn’t burn nearly as hot as it did when Johona made the remedy for him. He took a sip and found that the temperature was almost perfect. It burned him just a little, which he didn’t mind in the least. “I’ll be back in sorts before you know it.”

“Excellent, Mr. Walter,” Iris said, giving her employer a faint smile. She stood there a moment, watching him and fidgeting quietly, as if there were something more she wanted to say. Peter noticed and thought it strange, but paid her no mind. He glanced over at her every now and again, considering asking her what was weighing on her mind, but she seemed too delicate to press for information.

Eventually, though, she did speak up again. “Um, Mr. Walter... would you mind if I... Would you allow me to feel your forehead? T-to see if you have a fever.”

Peter eyed her questioningly for a second before he slowly moved to place his tea down on the bedside table. Her request was a bit funny, he thought. Or maybe it was only her hesitation in asking it that made it feel that way. “I don’t see why not,” he said.

“Alright, then.” Iris raised a hand and tentatively laid her fingertips against his forehead. Her skin felt cool in comparison to his, her fingers dry and callused. He gazed up at her as she gently flattened her fingers to his skin, then turned her hand over to feel with the other side. Her focused expression was soft, but he could read her unwavering concentration in the faintly tightened line of her lips and the small, shallow line that appeared between her eyebrows.

Almost as soon as she had touched him, Iris took her hand back. “You feel a little warm, but not feverish,” she said factually. “You aren’t feeling chilled, are you?”

“Quite the opposite,” Peter replied. “It’s just the change in the weather. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Is there nothing else you need?”

The very nature of the question, the way that Iris asked it, almost made Peter want to make up some random, inconsequential task for her, just because she seemed so motivated to follow another order from him . He wouldn’t do that to her, though. He found no joy in pointlessly ordering people around. “I don’t believe so,” he said. “I only need to rest a while and let the remedy kick in. Once it does, I’ll be right again. You can go, Iris.”

“As you wish, Mr. Walter,” she said softly. The shy smile reappeared on her face as she slipped out of the room, quietly pulling the door closed behind her. Peter gazed at it for a long time after she left, his mind clogged with wonderment. There was something about Iris. He couldn’t quite put a name to it. It didn’t bother him in excess. In fact, it hardly bothered him at all, but he still found it hard to ignore the queerness of her mannerisms.

 _Ah, well_ , he thought to himself as he retrieved his cup of Johona’s morning sickness remedy and took another sip. _It’s only Iris. I suppose there’s nothing I can do to change her._

* * *

Peter stayed in his room for an extra hour that morning, waiting for his nausea to reach a point where it was manageable. The tea was a considerable improvement over simply waiting out the sickness. Even the biscuit Iris had given him seemed to help a little. He wondered if maybe he hadn’t been feeling hungry rather than nauseous, but his past experiences reminded him that he had been right in holding off on eating until his stomach had settled.

The day’s work in the lab went quickly. Without the wild goose chase for blue matter to stall him, the automaton was being completed with surprising speed. She had taken on the appearance of a half-finished human; her face was still undeniably skull-like, her jaw and throat mechanisms still exposed, and her limbs were barely anything more than welded steel bones, but she was holding together nicely. She was nearly complete. Her machine pieces were almost there. All Peter had to do was make her shells, and she’d be decently finished. She would be pretty before long, just like...

That thought had halted Peter’s progress in his work. The second it crossed his mind, he set down his tools and moved on to another task. He hadn’t tried to capture blue matter in several weeks. He couldn’t fall behind on the most important part of his project. With nothing to fuel his creations, and with nothing to prove the theories that led to their construction, there didn’t seem to be a point to his work at all.

The day’s attempts were just as successful as the last ones he had made. Meaning, of course, that they weren’t successful at all.

He was starting to feel sick again after several hours of repetitive, pointless summoning. Johona had advised him that food would help take the edge off of the nausea, and if he drank her therapeutic tea along with it, he had a better chance of overcoming the nausea and avoiding another vomiting spell. He figured he could halt his work and take care of his symptoms for just a little while. At this rate, he could have his automatons finished and leave himself ample time to harness their power source. The blue matter and its finicky properties wouldn’t change, regardless of whether he kept trying to capture it or not.

Peter emerged from the lab to find that the maids had stayed a little later than usual. As he’d expected, Iris was in the library, dusting off bookshelves. She heard the hinges of the heavy door creaking open and turned around to see her employer standing there. She quickly climbed down from the sliding ladder, straightened her apron and stood at attention like a military cadet. “Mr. Walter,” she said.

“Hello, Iris,” Peter replied. He glanced at the clock. It was nearing two. “Miriam running a bit late today?”

“You could put it that way, I suppose. Our next employer has a wife who stays home and lets us in when we arrive, and she doesn’t expect us at any particular time. Miriam still likes to be punctual and stick to a schedule, so really we... er...” Iris stopped short, realizing that she had started to ramble, and quickly corrected herself. “W-we’re nearly finished here. We’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“There’s no need to rush, really. It isn’t as if I have company coming over or anything of the like.” Peter moved toward the doorway of the library. “I should probably find Miriam and let her know. Maybe my request about Johona’s laundry was more time-consuming than expected.”

“Th-that’s not necessary, Mr. Walter,” Iris stammered, She chased him a few steps, but shyly drew back when he turned around. “I... I mean... It’s already been finished. I-I saw to it myself.”

“Did you?” Peter smiled. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Th-thank you.” A responsive smile tugged at the corners of the maid’s lips and her line of sight fluttered down to the floor. “Th-they aren’t dry yet, though. I-I left them hanging out back... I-I hope that’s alright.”

“That’s perfectly fine. We’ll collect them later. I really should see to Miriam, though.”

“M-Mr. Walter?”

Peter was once again halted in his efforts to leave the room. Iris looked up at him, all traces of cheer suddenly gone from her face. Her liquid brown eyes gazed deeply into his, seeming almost to be searching for something. “If... If you don’t mind me asking, sir, about your illness... is it getting worse?”

The question struck Peter like an unexpected bolt of lightning. It wasn’t so much the question itself, but the way Iris had asked it. She was looking at him with the face of a child who had just learned the meaning of death, like she was expecting to be told of some grim inevitability that lurked in the near future. Her expression stirred something in his heart, and he found it almost unsettling. He understood that she was concerned. Miriam was, and he knew that the rest of the maids were as well, although they never spoke of it to his face. None of them had ever approached him in this way before, though. Even when Miriam talked directly about his feigned illness, she never looked like this.

“What led you to think that way, Iris?” Peter haltingly asked, too bewildered to give her a real answer.

“You were too sick to get out of bed this morning. Up until now, you’ve always been able to manage, but... today things are different. And I began thinking... M-maybe you just aren’t having a good day, and maybe you’ll be better tomorrow, but I still can’t help but imagine...” She trailed off, biting her lip, her eyes on the floor.

“I’m not really any worse than usual, Iris,” he reassured her. “I only slept a little too long and couldn’t get my head on straight. But I’m fine now. You can see that.” He reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Why does this trouble you so much?”

Iris gasped at the contact. Her head snapped straight up and her eyes were locked with his. She stood stock still, staring at him with wide, startled eyes. “M-Mr. Walter...”

“Oh, god!” Peter quickly removed his hand and took a step back. “I-I didn’t mean to... I’m terribly sorry about that. I only wanted to...” He sighed and rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. “You seemed distressed, and I thought it might help ease you.”

“N-no, no, it’s fine with me if you do, Mr. Walter,” Iris stuttered, averting her eyes again and tugging at her apron strings. “Y-you can... You can touch me, if you like.”

Peter gazed at her, still surprised by his own actions, but somehow not at all surprised by Iris. The tension slowly dissipated, and he took a breath and smiled again. “I don’t want you to worry too much about me, Iris. I’ve been managing on my own all this time, and with Johona here now, I’m even better off than before. I’m sure that all of this sickness business will be cleared up before long.”

Iris didn’t seem to believe him. “You’re sure you aren’t getting worse?” she apprehensively asked.

“I’m sure.” And he was. Johona had said that the bouts of nausea would become fewer and further between after the first three months were over. He only had another two weeks with the episodes at their worst, and the sailing would be slightly smoother from then on. With that in mind, he took a step toward Iris and placed a hand on her head to gently ruffle her thick corkscrew curls. “Now stop fretting over me.”

“As you wish, Mr. Walter.” The maid’s cheeks flushed and she kept her gaze from him, eyelashes fluttering. Peter removed his hand, and she quickly returned to her task at hand. “Shall I fetch Miriam for you?”

“If you have an idea where she is, I can find her on my own.”

“Last I saw, she was in the kitchen. She might be around the side of the house by the compost, since she was collecting the ashes from the stove.”

“Thank you, Iris.” Peter offered her one last smile before he ventured off into the house to find Miriam. As it turned out, she was exactly where Iris had said she would be. She stood by the large wooden box that served as a garden composter, emptying her tin pails that were heaped with fireplace refuse.

“Afternoon, Master Walter,” she said cordially. “Heard from Iris ye weren’t well this morning.”

“I wasn’t. Only an upset of my sleep schedule, nothing more,” Peter explained, dismissing the concern. “Did she seem upset by it?”

“A bit. Not unreasonable, fer a fragile little thing like her.” Miram cleared out the last of the ashes and shut the composter lid. “It was a mite concernin’, though, when ye didn’t show yer face downstairs ‘til an hour after arrival.”

“And I apologize for that. I might have been able to, if I hadn’t slept so late.”

“You know, Peter,” Miriam began, her hands now poised on her hips, a bucket held in each, “my offer still stands, should ye ever need it.”

“I know, Miriam. You tell me every day I see you.”

“My apologies if I’m soundin’ like a broken phonograph, but you’ve been ill fer a mighty long time. Ye need to see a doctor, or get yerself a prescription, or some other kind’a-”

“I’ve seen a doctor already,” Peter interrupted. “I’ve been given medication, and Johona is taking care of the rest for me. I’ll be fine, Miriam. I only need to rest a while longer.”

“Then maybe it’s all the time ye spend in that lab o’ yours.” Miriam gathered up her tools, shook out the remaining ashes into the dirt and started back toward the door, Peter at her heels. “Maybe a day or two outside couldn’t hurt. All that stale air can’t be helpin’ much.”

“Maybe,” Peter listlessly agreed as he followed her to the door. “But you know I have work to finish. If I want to keep the grants that all of these companies have been providing me-”

“You’ll find time, Master Walter,” Miriam said. She offered her employer an encouraging smile before stepping through the door. Three of her staff had already gathered in the foyer, aggregating their cleaning supplies and ensuring that everything that they had brought in would be going with them. Miriam looked them over carefully. “Any o’ ye girls seen Iris?”

“Still in fiddling around in the library,” Gretchen said. “Shall I bring her in, madam?”

“N-no, don’t! I-I’m here!” At a second’s notice, Iris came scuttling into the room, her dusting supplies clutched tightly in her hands. “M-my... my apologies, Miram, I t-took longer than expected. There are still some spiders in the library. The last ones must have laid eggs or...” She glanced up and saw Peter standing just behind her manager. “M-Mr. Walter, I-I don’t mean to frighten you by it or anything like that... I only...”

“It’s alright, Iris,” Peter said calmly, an upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I can deal with a few spiders.” She seemed so flustered, just standing there and speaking to him. It was almost comical.

“Right, then. We’re off. Next client been expecting us a long time,” Miram said. “And I’m sure a man as busy as Master Walter’s dealt with greater problems than things breedin’ in his house without his knowledge.”

Peter laughed, hoping he didn’t sound nervous. “See you again soon, Miriam,” he said, giving a small salute.

Miriam nodded, smiling genially, and walked out the door, her company in tow. Iris lingered for a second in the doorway, looking back at Peter. Their eyes met for an awkward second. She looked tense, her lower lip twitching nervously, and Peter felt that there was some statement she wished to force past it, but before either of them could say a word, Iris pulled the door closed and followed the rest of the maids to their waiting vehicle, gone from her employer’s sight.

Peter gazed at the entrance long after she left. For the second time that day, he was left staring blankly at the place where she once stood. There was something she had wanted to say to him. She wasn’t being obvious about it, and she seemed rather set on keeping her silence, but Peter had a notion that if she had things her way, the maid wouldn’t be keeping nearly as quiet as she did. A minute passed and he turned away to take something from the kitchen and go back to his work in the lab, but not for a second did Iris leave his thoughts. He got the impression that, whatever her reason, she would have wanted it that way.

He left his first automaton untouched when he returned to his work and began shuffling through the blueprints for the second. He dug through his stockpile of spare parts and sheets of metal, picking out what could be salvaged, what could withstand being melted down or blended together make the best alloys for their given purposes. All the while, he wondered what Iris possibly could have been keeping from him. For he was sure she was keeping _something_ , though he hadn’t the foggiest idea what it could be.

He paused, his thoughts rolling back on themselves. All of a sudden, the way he was thinking didn’t seem fair. _What should I care if Iris is keeping something from me?_ he thought, scolding himself from within his own head. _It’s no different from what I’m doing to her. People have secrets. And sometimes, those need to be kept._

The thought finally put aside, Peter tried to move on with his work, gathering an armful of steel rods from a carton and ferrying them to his new workstation. Halfway there, a muscle cramped just above his hip, causing his entire side to suddenly go stiff. The rods dropped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He groaned in frustration and keeled over, his back arched and his hands pressed against the strained spot on his abdomen. He stayed for a few seconds, breathing heavily, until the pain faded. He rubbed with his fingertips at the sore spot. Johona had warned him about straining himself too much. The baby wouldn’t respond well to it, and in turn, neither would he.

Peter turned his gaze down to himself and glared at the cramped spot, eyes narrowed. _Yes_ , he thought bitterly. _Some secrets definitely need to be kept_.

* * *

“Iris was asking about you this morning,” Johona mentioned while she rubbed a handful of spices into a slice of raw meat and laid it on a cast-iron skillet to be seared for dinner.

“Whatever she asked you, she probably has an answer by now,” Peter replied in a deadpan voice. He poked at the flames in the wood-burning stove, willing them to rise a little higher.

His friend glanced over at him from the counter, her eyebrows knitted. “If that were true, I don’t think you would have been as calm as you were when I came home.”

That finally caught Peter’s attention. “Then what did she ask you?”

“Whether or not I’d managed to diagnose you,” she recounted. “Iris is very attentive, you know. She listens to people when they talk and remembers just about everything. She knows what kind of madness went on at the Cavalcadium when we studied there, and how much we discovered that hasn’t been publicized to the world.”

“So she thinks you might know of an unidentified pathogen that had gotten me sick?”

“If homosexual tendencies are a pathogen, I must say that do.”

Peter glared angrily at her. “It was _once_ , and I was _drunk_.”

“I’m not making any assertions, Peter. I’m only saying that sometimes, when our inhibitions are wiped away, our real personalities emerge.”

“That sounds like an assertion, if I’ve ever heard one,” the engineer grumbled as he turned over a few embers. The flames licked at the bottom of the grate atop the stove. He closed the hatch and stepped back. “Is the skillet ready yet?”

“Almost.” Johona laid one more slab of meat down. “Now it is.” She handed the skillet off to Peter and went to clean her hands at the sink. He placed the skillet on the stove and left it to lean back on the counter. He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. Everything about him felt tense.

“You know, Walter,” Johona said once the tap was turned off, “I’ve been wondering about Iris for a while now.”

“What’s there to wonder about?” Peter asked, dismissing the subject before they had even discussed it. In truth, his mind had been in the same place as his friend’s for a while. There was a lot to wonder about when it came to Iris, depending on how deeply one chose to look. Peter had a notion that most people with maids paid very little attention to them. But he hadn’t had maids for very long. Aside from that, half his livelihood as a scientist depended on careful observations, and his habits from the lab had leeched a little into the rest of his life.

“She acts strangely, even for a servant girl,” Johona explained. “You can’t tell me that you don’t notice how much she apologizes. Even for things that have nothing to do with her. And the way she follows you like a lost puppy... it’s a little concerning.”

“You’ve noticed it too?” Peter finally admitted. There wasn’t a single thing Johona had said that hadn’t run through his mind already.

“How could I not?” she rejoined. “I’ve seen a lot in my time as a nurse, and I’ve found it glaringly obvious. Has she always been like this?”

Peter took a second to think. “I can’t be sure. From what I remember, she’s always been a little servile. But being so attached to me is recent, I think.”

“It’s probably because we’ve told Miriam’s staff that you’re ill.” Johona turned the meat over in the skillet, then added, “Maybe she’s afraid that you’re going to die.”

“What?”

It was the absolute last conclusion that Peter had thought his friend would draw. Sure, he was sick, and sure, all of the maids knew that much, but he had never thought it seemed very serious. It was only recently that he had opened up about his symptoms. Even then, he thought, there had been rumors circulating among the maids in Miriam’s staff for god-knows-how-long beforehand. And according to the lies Peter and Johona had fed them, the engineer had been suffering from an unnamed illness for over four weeks. It was quite possible that some of them had started to talk. His prospects probably looked very grim.

“But why should she care about me so much?” Peter wondered out loud. “What impact would my disappearance have on her life?”

“Well, you _are_ her employer,” Johona suggested. “ _Her_ life depends on _your_ payment for her services.”

“She works for Miriam, though. Not me,” he corrected her. “And she has other clients. If it isn’t my money that she’ll be receiving, it’ll be someone else’s.”

“It might not be.”

The comment was perplexing to him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that not everyone might be so willing as you to have her working in their home,” Johona clarified. “People have their prejudices. Why do you think that I had such a hard time finding a job, even with my level of training?” She sighed and shook her head. “Honestly, sometimes I think you forget that races exist.”

Peter brushed off Johona’s chiding and tried to move on, but the familiar chill of worry had already started to leech into the back of his mind. “She’s going to become a problem, isn’t she?”

“If she continues to watch you like a hawk, then yes, she might.”

“But what do you propose I do?” he asked hopelessly. “I can’t fire her for no reason. All she’s trying to do is please me. That isn’t a crime. Even if I tried to make a case for being disturbed by her behavior, it wouldn’t pan out properly.”

“It wouldn’t?” Johona raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“No, it wouldn’t, because I’m not,” Peter retorted. “Besides, she doesn’t need to be punished for wanting to do her job well. If anything, she should be rewarded for putting so much effort into what she does, and it’s likely that no one but Miriam ever gives her anything in return for it.”

“Wait,” his friend cut in. “Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that you’ve been humoring her?”

“H-humor... humoring...” The engineer stammered, wanting to parrot Johona’s words back at her to enforce exactly how wrong she was, that there was nothing for him to humor and what he was doing was out of simple human kindness, but he just couldn’t seem to get his tongue into working order.

“I won’t be angry if you are,” Johona said, interrupting her friend’s inarticulate sputtering. “Iris is very endearing. And if she’s somehow found herself a soft spot in that steely heart of yours, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“But she hasn’t!” Peter blurted out without thinking.

His outburst made Johona laugh. “Fine, fine, fine. If you insist, I’ll go along with whatever you say. But I do recommend that you pay a little closer attention to how she acts around you. You might find your observations quite interesting.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Shut up and cook, Johona.”

* * *

From that day onward, Peter pretended that he’d brushed off Johona’s advice. But he hadn’t. Not really.

In reality, he had taken to watching Iris with a subtle fascination. It wasn’t difficult to do casually. As it was, the maid naturally gravitated toward him whenever she was in for the day. There wasn’t a single instance where the continuity was broken. Even when Miriam or Linda or Gretchen came in and told her that she was needed elsewhere, she always promptly returned to her post near her employer.

As their hours together whiled on, Peter began speculating on Johona’s suggestion. If Iris really did believe he was going to die, did she stay so close to him because she wanted to be near him if it happened? He’d already guessed that she stayed close to him because she wanted to help if anything were to go wrong. And if he were dying, would she try to save him? Would she stay at his side so he wouldn’t have to die alone? And after he was gone, would she mourn for him? The theories ran rampant in Peter’s head as he studied Iris, growing more and more scattered from one day to the next. He’d never thought of Iris this way before. He had always cared for her, just as any decent human being would care for another. Now, though, she had become a special interest in his mind.

And perhaps Iris knew it too, since she had started to observe him as well.

They were only small infractions, the fleeting circumstances when the two of them would catch each other spying at the same time. An awkward confrontation, a moment of accidental eye contact, Iris quickly slinking behind a corner or Peter shutting a door and pretending he had fully intended to be where he was. He felt he deserved as much. If he was going to study his maid so closely, it only seemed fair that she should be allowed to stalk him in the same way.

In spite of his logic, Peter was starting to worry. He suspected that Iris wouldn’t stop her spying if he stopped his own. If she really was as observant as Johona said she was, it wouldn’t be long before she began to suspect something.

Then, one morning, it seemed that Peter’s worst fears had been realized.

The situation wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, considering everything that had happened over the past weeks. Peter was in the library, fiddling with a few design sketches for his next automaton and some books on metalsmithing. The structure for this one would be considerably different from the first prototype. This one would be taller, a little lankier, have its arms calibrated for a few different instruments. More importantly, he’d already chosen its outward appearance: a man, modeled to look just a touch like himself. He had yet to start melting the metals together and fusing his mechanical pieces, but he wouldn’t be far off.

It wasn’t long before Iris made her scheduled appearance. Like clockwork, she walked into the room only a few minutes after Peter had settled himself at the coffee table and began busying herself with whatever chores she could find. There was always something to be done, and Iris was the last person in the world to be caught sitting idle. She worked, he studied, and in sporadic moments, one would glance at the other. Peter made mental notes as he did, taking care not to accidentally scribble them down on his blueprints. He thought Iris was doing the same. Every few glances, her eyes would meet with his, and she would instantaneously turn away.

Then, in one instance, they stayed.

“Is something the matter, Iris?” Peter asked.

“N-no, Mr. Walter,” the maid stuttered in reply. She quickly looked away from him.

“Are you sure? You seem a bit troubled.” He feigned confusion, pretending he hadn’t been watching her watch him for what must have been over an hour.

“I-it’s nothing, Mr. Walter,” she insisted. “Nothing at all.” She stared blankly at the shelves for a tense second, but Peter saw her eyes dart back in his direction before she ripped them away again. The movement made dread pool in his chest, turning his heart to stone. She’d noticed something about him.

Keeping himself collected, Peter slid a paper into the binding of the book he had open, closed it and left it on the table. He stood up and slowly approached Iris. “Is this about the last conversation we had?”

“No... no, Mr. Walter, it’s...” She took a step back from him and accidentally backed into a shelf. She spun around, flustered, and pushed a few books back into place as dust spilled from the shelves and drifted down through the air. “It’s not important. I’m fine. Really.”

Sensing her discomfort, he stopped his advance and remained where he stood. “You’re obviously not. If you were, you wouldn’t have been shadowing me so closely all this time.” Iris’s eyes widened at the mention of her unconventional habit, and her face took on a mortified expression. “I’m not angry with you for it, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Peter quickly added, trying to sound reassuring. “That isn’t the case at all. But... don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“M-M-Mr. Walter... I-I... I’m so sorry.” Iris choked out the apology in stilted, strangled bursts. “I... I didn’t mean to... I never intended to i-impinge on your privacy, I... I only...”

“Listen to me, Iris,” Peter said. “I already said that I’m not angry.” Without thinking, he closed the distance between them, putting himself at the maid’s side with his hand resting on her shoulder. “If you’re still worrying about me-”

“I-I know you t-told me not to,” she stuttered softly. “B-but I... I can’t help it. I... I th-think about it so much...”

“Iris.” Peter held both of Iris’s shoulders to turn her towards him and gently lifted her chin to bring her gaze up to his. “Iris, please don’t apologize for this. I can’t control the way you think. If you’re still concerned, that’s perfectly reasonable. I think I can understand a little better than you give me credit for.”

Iris stared at him a moment and sniffed. “Y-you do?”

“I do.” With that, he patted her shoulders and took a step back. “If there’s anything in particular that you need to know, you can ask me or Johona about it. Or Miriam. She knows just about as much as the rest of us.”

The maid nodded her understanding. “I will,” she affirmed.

“That’s a good girl.” Peter smiled at her, then turned to go back to his workstation. Before he could, though, Iris’s small, timid voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“M-Mr. Walter, I can’t help but notice there’s... there’s something different about you.”

Peter froze halfway between Iris and the coffee table. Stiffly, he turned his head to glance over his shoulder. Struggling to keep his voice sounding calm, he asked, “What was that you just said?”

“N-nothing important, only... y-you seem a little extraordinary,” Iris said. It took only a second for the apologies to start spilling out. “I-I don’t mean that in a bad way, Mr. Walter. That isn’t what I mean at all.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Peter assured her. He tried to sound reassuring, but he wasn’t sure how well it worked. He heard panic seeping into his words, and his mind was already drowning in it. Nervously, he asked, “What do you think is different, exactly?”

“I’m... not sure, actually,” the maid admitted. “I only felt that... You’ve changed, somehow. I just can’t seem to put my finger on it.” Her eyes fixed on his face first, then slowly moved down, wandering over Peter’s body. He felt a shiver crawl up his spine. If she stared at his stomach, if her gaze lingered there for even a second, he’d have a breakdown.

Not a moment too soon, Iris had focused on his face again. “I-it’s a good sort of change,” she quickly reassured him. “I swear it is.”

“Oh,” he murmured in reply. He felt ready to collapse with relief. “Well... I-I suppose I should thank you?”

“You don’t have to.” Iris pulled her gaze away from him and busied herself with dusting. Without looking up from her work, she added, “It might be seasonal. The weather’s been very nice lately.”

“It has.” In all honesty, Peter had no idea what the weather was like, since he barely ever left his lab. Iris would have a better idea of such things than he would, so he resolved to simply let her talk.

“The climate can have an effect on people’s moods, you know,” the maid continued. “Seasonal depression, that’s what they call it. But I’m sure you already knew about that.”

“I’ve heard the term before.”

An awkward silence then pervaded the room, interrupted only with the occasional turning of pages and Iris’s feather duster fluttering across the shelves. Neither of them spoke, and eventually, Iris picked up her few supplies and started toward the door. “I suppose you want to be left alone to work, Mr. Walter,” she said. “I apologize for any inconvenience I’ve caused you.”

“But it wasn’t-” Peter began, but before he could finish, his sentence was swiftly punctuated with the click of the door’s latch falling into place. Iris gone from the room, he spoke softly to the empty air where she had been standing. “But it wasn’t an inconvenience.”

The library silent all over again, Peter tried to return to his work. But though there was nothing to distract him anymore, his found that his mind was wandering more than ever. Anxiety gnawed at his thoughts, and before long, he’d lost sight of what he was even supposed to be doing. All he could think of was Iris. He hadn’t minded her behavior before. If anything, he’d thought it was charming, but things had changed, and far too quickly for his tastes.

Iris fawning over him wasn’t a winsome quirk anymore. It was dangerous.

Johona had been right. With the way that Iris presided over him like a guardian angel, it wouldn’t take long for her to find out the truth. She’d already taken on the notion that something had changed him.

That thought in particular was extremely disconcerting. Peter didn’t want to think of the implications, but he couldn’t help it. His hands went instinctively to his abdomen and pressed themselves flat against it, feeling for a change. It was hard to tell, with the layers of fabric that covered his body and concealed its shape, but he had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. He pressed harder with his hands, running them over the front of his vest, searching. The fabric was definitely straining more than before. They were minute changes, ones he wouldn’t have cared to notice if no one had pointed them out to him. And it seemed that Iris had done a fine job of that.

Peter looked down and stared at the place where his hands rested. He couldn’t see very much of a difference as it was, but his sense of touch wasn’t lying to him. There was a gentle slope to his stomach, one too small to be seen from a reasonable distance, but one that now seemed glaringly obvious to him. As soon as he noticed it, insecurity dug its claws into him. He felt exposed and embarrassed, even though the room was empty. He suddenly wished to cover it up even more than it already was, perhaps wrap himself up in a huge trench coat, a robe or a blanket or _anything_ that would hide the fact that his body was changing.

He couldn’t avoid facing this any longer. Iris had seen it even before he had. Things couldn’t be allowed to progress this way. He would have to talk to Johona about it when she came home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, shit, it looks like things are happening.  
> So apparently it was so late last night when I finally got around to posting this update that I could barely function and I fell asleep halfway through reading and editing, so I had to finish it when I woke up this morning. So the update is slightly late I guess?  
> I'm a fucking mess. HOORAY.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this garbage. Have fun reading the rest of it.  
> See you next chapter.


	8. An Appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is garbage and here I am with another update.  
> Also breached 120 hits. Fuck yes.  
> It's 1:41 AM. I'm not sleeping, because I'd rather torture you with my weird plot manipulations and totally noncanonical drabbles of whatever the fuck kind of shit this is supposed to be. Comedy? Body horror? Weird fetishy stuff? Don't fucking ask me, I have no idea.  
> I'm here to thank cicada_s and volatileSoloiste as well as Feep for putting up with me and my inability to shut up about this stupid story, because there really isn't very much that excites me as much as my own dumb ideas do. I mean, there are a lot of things that excite me, but very few do so in a good way. Is this what my life is supposed to be like?  
> Should I even bother with the tumblr plugs this time around? No one's gonna use them. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the charmingly awkward interactions in the last update. There are gonna be more of them. Also that small tidbit of information shoved in at the very end of the chapter that you may or may not remember or care about.  
> Fuck it. I give up. Just read the chapter and get it over with.  
> Before I go, some CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS for self-hate, suicidal thoughts and dysmorphia.  
> I warned you that this would get visual eventually.

When Peter finally made his confession to Johona about the events that had taken place that day, she didn’t take the news lightly.

“This is a disaster!” she declared as soon as the news was broken. She had dropped her silverware on her plate when her friend relayed the events to her, and it clattered against the ceramic as she emphatically slammed her hand down onto the table. “I told you that allowing her to stalk you like that would be dangerous.”

“And I listened. All this time, I was thinking the same thing, but I was never sure what I could do to put an end to it without hurting Iris. Now I’m afraid that it’s out of my hands.” Peter shrank back into his chair, unsettled by Johona’s outburst.

“We can’t _allow_ it to be out of our hands, Peter.”

“It was only this one instance, Jo. I won’t let this slip through my fingers again. I promise. I’ll... I’ll try to work something out.” Even as he said the words, Peter knew he was lying. He had no idea what he would do about Iris. If she knew something, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the maids, and eventually Miriam herself, would know the truth. His reputation, the little respect he’d managed to earn, possibly even his chances at finding success in the scientific world... all of it would be destroyed. As he knew it, his own identity had already been shattered. His life was falling to pieces before him, all because of one little mistake.

“I certainly hope so,” his friend retorted. “We need to get this solved _now_ , before any rumors begin to spread. We’ve already told everyone and their grandmother that you’re ill, and we can stretch that half-truth as far as it needs to go. But if any contradictory evidence starts to appear, there’s no telling what people will start to think.”

“I know, and I’d rather not find out,” Peter said weakly. He slumped forward in his chair and leaned his elbows on the table. The conversation had stirred up his nerves again and made him feel too nauseous to eat. “What bothers me the most is that she noticed it before I did.”

“Noticed what?”

Peter looked up from the table and saw a look of unadulterated confusion on Johona’s face. “You haven’t noticed it either?” he asked.

“Peter, I examined you just a few days ago. If there were something to notice, I would have seen it.”

“Maybe it’s because you see me so often. It might have happened so slowly, neither of us saw it until-”

“Would you mind telling me what the hell you’re referring to before you keep on rambling?”

He paused, and a flush of embarrassment rose to his cheeks. “Johona, I think...” he unsteadily began. “I think I’m starting to show.”

Johona stared at him, wide-eyed in surprise. “You are?”

“I wasn’t able to see much of it myself, but apparently Iris could,” he continued. “And when she mentioned that I had changed, I... I can’t quite explain it, but I _felt_ it. I just... Somehow, I _knew_ something was different.”

“Really?” his friend asked, now rapt with fascination. She scooted her chair back, looking ready to launch herself across the table at him. “So you’re blooming early? Can I take a look at you?”

The suggestion made Peter tense. “Maybe later. I think I’ve been scrutinized enough for one day.”

“If you say so,” Johona said defeatedly, sinking back down into her chair. “I’ll have to do it tomorrow, then. After you tell me what you plan on doing about Iris. And the other maids, for that matter.”

“Tomorrow,” Peter agreed listlessly. He forced himself to keep scraping at his food, of only to keep Johona quiet. She was keeping an even closer eye on him than Iris. Whenever she happened to be in, she seemed reluctant to let him out of her sight. He blamed himself for it, of course. He’d made a lifetime’s worth of bad decisions in his recent past, and the things he’d said to her in their first few days reunited were unforgivable. He shouldn’t have taken out ages’ worth of pent-up emotions on her in the way that he had. Now she had been living in San Diego with him for nearly a month, and she’d become accustomed to his mood swings. He wasn’t sure where they came from; it could have been his hormones, or the fact that he was still mourning. Maybe a toxic combination of both. Whatever the reason, the outcome wasn’t pleasant, and it put Peter on edge nearly every time he spoke.

“How many garments have we finished altering?” Johona asked, pulling Peter out of his introspection.

“A little more than half of them, I think,” he replied. “And you already pinned the others. They should be finished before the week is over.” It was nice to be finally talking about something factual.

“Good. We’re going to need them. I’d offer to help you more, but sadly, the doctor asks a lot from me.” She paused, then added. “I have to say, you’ve been very brave to make it this far.”

Her words made Peter’s heart feel unnaturally heavy. “Have I?”

“Of course you have,” she said. Her face softened as she spoke, and she reached across the table to place her hand over his. “Don’t you remember what you were like when I first came back?”

“I wish I didn’t,” he shamefully replied.

“And look at how far you’ve come. You’re almost back in working order. Only a few issues to iron out, and you might be back to normal before long.”

“I don’t think I ever was normal in the first place.” He reached his thumb around to hook it with Johona’s. “If there ever was a normal for me, it must be far out of my reach now.”

“You’ll always be able to find a new normal, whatever that happens to be.” She offered her friend a reassuring smile and gently squeezed his hand in hers. “It’s kind of sweet, when you think about it.”

“What is?”

“When I first returned, you were ready to throw your own life away, but you aren’t anymore. This might only be my opinion, but it looks to me like you’re willing to keep yourself alive in order to save someone else.”

Peter wanted to disagree with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, the clock in the hallway chimed eight, filling the silence for him. “I’m still covered in grease,” he said after the last chime sounded. “I need a bath.”

“Go on ahead, then. I might want one as well. Someone came in with an infected laceration today, and let me tell you-”

“Please don’t,” Peter interrupted, wrinkling his nose in disgust. The last thing he wanted to hear about was another of Johona’s bloody hospital stories. He picked up his used dishes, deposited them in the sink and left the kitchen for the stairwell.

* * *

Minutes later, with the bathroom door locked behind him and the tap running hot water into the bath, Peter finally had a moment to himself. He’d been alone with his thoughts for almost the whole day, but his internal monologue had never been anything more than a disorganized drabble, like a string of letters stamped out by a monkey with a typewriter. With Johona as a breaker to put things into perspective, his mind felt much clearer. He was still riddled with anxiety, as he almost always was, but there was at least a touch more of rationality to his train of thought.

As he undressed, he thought of Iris. She had been running through his mind all day, her commentary replaying over and over again. If only she hadn’t been so vague in telling him what she had noticed. She said for herself that she wasn’t sure what about him had seemed so different. Maybe she only hadn’t wanted to be rude or insult him. But it couldn’t have been anything else that she had seen in him.

Peter turned toward the mirror and looked at his reflection. It was true. He looked completely different with the small sum of weight he had gained. His thin, lanky body had changed in subtle ways that he hadn’t cared to notice before, but with Iris having made it clear that something was amiss, they were hard to ignore.

Where his body was once sharp and angular, where in some places he used to be able to see his bones, his skin had gone smooth, as if someone had taken a sheet of sandpaper and rubbed all the lumps and ridges away. His shoulders had been rounded off, and the hard lines of his ribs and hipbones had nearly disappeared. He had softened around the edges, and the effect made him look almost feminine. It was disconcerting, but at the same time, Peter couldn’t bring himself to despise it. The new appearance didn’t look right on him, only because it didn’t quite feel like it was his own reflection that he was looking at. But it wasn’t all that bad. If this had been all that Iris had noticed, he honestly wouldn’t have minded very much.

Then, on impulse, his attention turned to his stomach. He’d felt the difference in the library that morning, even if he had never seen it before. But it was entirely possible that he simply hadn’t noticed it because he had never been looking for it. As soon as he focused, he saw it almost immediately. He had barely been able to see it when it was covered by a shirt and vest, especially now that he had started to wear oversized shirts to accustom himself to the feeling. But here, alone, with nothing to cover it up, it was more evident than ever.

The lower part of his abdomen was distended, only slightly, but just enough for a visible difference to be made. Peter stared at his reflection, turning himself a little to ensure that what he was seeing was really the truth. He had never taken this much time to study himself, and perhaps that was how he had missed something so obvious. His reflection gazed back at him, the same bewildered look on its face as Peter’s eyes roved over his own body. His hand drifted to the spot of skin just above his hip, and his reflection did the same. His fingers grazed over the faint outward curve of his belly.

He took his eyes from the mirror and looked down at himself, just to make sure that his reflection wasn’t lying. He pressed both his palms against his skin, just like he had in the library that morning, and they were met with the same result. The swell of his stomach was slight, so small he could almost cover it with his hand. He tried to do just that, cupping his palm over his skin to fit it against the curve. He felt his muscles tighten in their usual nervous reaction, and his heart fluttered. So small. The creature inside him was so tiny, he could hold it in a single hand.

For a second, Peter was entranced. But a second was as long as it lasted.

The moment died fast. He ripped his hands away from his body and turned his back to the mirror. What was he thinking? He was a biological anomaly. He wasn’t this thing’s mother. It might have been growing in his body, but that didn’t change the fact of where it had come from and what the reality of his situation was. Peter had never asked for this. None of this was supposed to be happening to him. Whatever it was that lived inside him- Peter still didn’t trust Johona’s quick assumption that it was actually a baby he was carrying- was nothing more than a parasite. It had taken up residence without warning and without his consent, and now it was feeding off of him, forcing him to do something that human males simply weren’t built to do.

This thing would destroy him. He was sure of it. For months now it had been making him intolerably sick, and now, barely having made it through eleven weeks, it was already starting to bend his body out of shape.

Peter stepped away from the sink, turned the tap off and roughly tore off the last of his clothes. He sank into the bath and pushed his head underwater. He thought that maybe he could drown his worries out, but after a few seconds he was forced to come up for air again. Agitated, he relentlessly cleaned away the residue of oil from his hands, skin and hair until not even the scent of it was left. He made quick work of drying off, draining the bath and changing his clothes. The books he’d left on his nightstand had been there for ages, and he’d been reminding himself for some time to switch them out for new ones. He picked up the stack all at once and traveled downstairs to the library.

He found Johona sitting in an overstuffed chair, a copper fountain pen in her hand and a leather-bound journal poised in her lap. She glanced up at him as he walked into the room. Her eyebrows knitted in concern when she noticed the look on his face. “Something wrong?” she asked.

Peter ran a hand through his damp hair and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Nothing should be. And I don’t think anything really is, only because of what you told me. But... I just don’t feel right.”

Johona’s gaze followed him as he dropped his books on the coffee table, crossed over to the loveseat, sank down onto the cushions and leaned limply against the side. She stuck her pen into the binding of her journal and snapped it shut. “How? Are you feeling sick again?”

“No. For once, that’s not it.” He leaned his head onto his hand, rubbing the heel into his forehead. “It’s true. Everything that I thought Iris had seen. It’s really there.”

“You mean-”

“Yes.” Peter didn’t want to hear her say it. That would make it too real. He was having a hard enough time coping with his own unskilled observations, and the confirmation of a medical professional was the last thing that he wanted to hear. The miniscule margin of doubt was unreasonably comforting to him, and he clung to it with every fiber of his being. “I still have a hard time believing it,” he admitted, mumbling into his sleeve. “It’s not natural. All of this is simply too strange.”

“I know how you feel,” his friend replied, studying him with tired, absent eyes. “Though I suppose it’s worse on your end, since this affects you more than it does me.”

“It took you away from Willcox and it’ll keep you here for however long it lasts. I’d say that’s a fairly serious effect.”

“If that’s how you see it. It doesn’t make a difference to me, which one of us this situation changes more. I only want to know that you’re going to be okay.”

Peter looked up at her with pleading eyes. “And will I be?”

“You know that I can’t give you a real prognosis,” Johona reminded him. “I wish I could, but...” She sighed and gestured at him. “ _This_ isn’t something that I’ve had much experience with before.”

The conversation was just about as soothing to Peter as a flash of lightning during a rainstorm. He curled up his legs on the cushion and wrapped his arms tightly around himself. Even now, he felt just as exposed as he had when he was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He felt like Johona was staring at him, gawking like a stranger, although he knew his fears were unreasonable and she had no malice for him. She only wanted to help, but in that moment, Peter didn’t want to be seen by anyone. The gazes of other people scared him. His _own body_ was scaring him. He felt an uncontrollable urge to fold himself up, hide his misshapen form from any prying eyes. But he knew it he wouldn’t be able to do it forever, and it would only get more difficult as time wore on.

Johona had risen from her chair while her friend was lost in his thoughts and crossed the small space between them to stand before him. She sat down on the edge of the coffee table and reached out to him, placing a hand on his ankle. “I know you don’t want anyone to look at you right now. And I’m sorry that I have to be this way, but I want you to talk to me, Peter. Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“I feel disgusting,” Peter weakly replied. “I hate myself for what I’ve done, and for what’s going to happen to me because of it. I hate that I’ve insulted Delilah’s memory, and I hate that even after all this time I haven’t stopped mourning her loss for a single say, not even all those nights I tried to drink her out of my head. Nothing makes sense anymore, and I don’t know how to feel about it.”

“You don’t have to know. And no one is telling you how to feel.” The nurse squeezed his ankle lightly in her fingers, trying to comfort him. “Maybe you need to stop thinking about this for a while. You’ll probably feel better about it once you get some rest.”

“You have a point. I’d prefer sleep to just about anything that’s been happening in my life nowadays.” Peter took a breath and moved his feet back down to the floor. A volume of Lovecraft or Bronte would at least put his anxious, babbling thoughts to rest for a while, enough for him to lose himself to calm, restful oblivion for a few hours.

He stood up, gathered the books he’d brought with him and went to the shelves to return them to their places. He then rifled through the shelves for some new titles. With a few books under his arm, he left the library with Johona at his side. She took her journal with her and followed him to his room. They sat together on his bed for a while in comfortable silence, Peter reading while Johona scribbled in her journal. Every so often he glanced over the edge of his novel, teasingly trying to catch a glimpse of what his friend was writing, and she would deftly shut the journal and try to ward him off, driving them both into a fit of giggles with each infraction.

Eventually, Johona’s entry was finished. She closed her journal, tied it shut with the ribbon sewn into the binding and fastened the knot with her pen. She scooted up next to Peter and read over his shoulder for a short while, but she got tired of it quickly. Gathering up her journal and pen, she bid her friend goodnight and left the room, taking care to quietly shut the door behind her.

In spite of the early-summer heat, Peter still found it necessary to pull his covers over himself. He removed his shirt first, as he habitually did in the summer months, but the feeling of exposure was still hard to ignore. Having his form obscured under a blanket made him feel somewhat better, and this small comfort was just enough to coax his mind to sleep. As Peter stretched out from under the blanket to snuff out the low light of the single candle that illuminated the room, he thought he noticed a faint bluish tint on his skin. He didn’t think much of it, though, and it was gone from his sight as the room went dark and he retreated under the covers. Sleep overtook him not long afterward.

* * *

Peter spent the whole following day mulling over what his next move would be. He couldn’t allow Iris to find out the truth of his situation, or anyone else from Miriam’s staff, for that matter. Something would have to be done.  He didn’t have the faintest idea of what that would be, but he had no choice but to sort it out on his own. No one would be able to handle the situation but him.

His focus was divided between matters as he tried to work on piecing together his next automaton. He had already cast the steel bones that would make up his skeleton. The pieces had yet to be assembled, as did his core. The imposing task of capturing sufficient blue matter to bring him to life loomed ominously in the future like a distant roll of thunder, and Peter tried to keep his mind off of it. As he laid out the mechanical pieces and set to work fitting them together, he tried to construct a plan.

Miriam had been trying for weeks to convince him to accept her help. It made him question, though, what kind of help she thought she could offer him. Doctors outside of the city or state, most likely. Witches or faith healers, possibly, if she thought he was getting desperate. He wondered if there might have even been another cleaning service she might recommend to him with maids that don’t pry and gossip as much.

There was no way to find out but to ask her. But in his position, that was the absolute last thing that Peter wanted to do.

He discussed the issue with Johona when she came back that evening. He gave his friend a brief outline of the plan he had in mind, which, for all its flaws and loose ends, somehow had a slim chance of success. She listened attentively and, just as he had expected, she pushed him to go through with it. It was the only plan they had, she said, and it was better than nothing.

The strategy was put in place. The maids would be coming in the next morning. Miriam wouldn’t waste any time in making another attempt to help him. He would talk things over with her, and the issue would be resolved before the afternoon.

Or, more accurately, it would have been if Peter had succeeded in waking up that morning.

Thankfully, it wasn’t Iris that came to fetch him, but Johona. As soon as he stirred after hearing her knock at the door, he slipped into the usual routine. His stomach twisted up, his gag reflex kicked in, and his mere existence left him feeling ill and unpleasant.

Still, Johona wouldn’t allow him to back out of their plan. It would be another few minutes before Miriam’s staff arrived, and she wanted to ensure that Peter remembered what he was supposed to do. He would pretend to take whatever Miriam had to offer, and then discuss the information with her in the evening. Peter tried to follow along, but his persistent nausea was making it difficult. Johona quickly brewed him a cup of the morning sickness remedy, serving it too hot, as she always did. Peter tried to drink it, searing as it was. Its potency was disappointing that morning. Johona pointed out that she was running low on some of the herbs, and that she would need to pick up some more while she was out that day.

Before long, they began hearing voices and motion echoing up the stairs from the ground floor. That was Johona’s cue to leave, if she had any intention of catching her morning train. She left Peter as he was, with a weaker-than-usual cup of tea and a promise that she would help him figure out what to do about the maids once he’d obtained his answer from Miriam. Peter didn’t feel at all secure, but he forced himself to nod along and agree to follow through. If Johona was nervous, she didn’t show it. She simply left her friend to his responsibilities and went on her way.

Peter got dressed in the newly altered clothes that had spent the past few weeks hidden in the lab. He hoped that the loose-fitting pieces would help conceal him, or at least obscure the faint swell of his abdomen that now seemed unignorable to him. All along, he kept going back to Johona’s remedy tea. He tried to brew himself another cup, hoping that the potency of each would build up to something sufficient, but nothing seemed to help. It only made matters worse, giving his stomach something to purge itself of if that was what it came to. Eventually, he stopped trying and decided instead to try and wait the nausea out, as he was used to doing before Johona had come to San Diego.

When he wandered around the house to try and find Miriam, surprisingly, she was nowhere to be seen. Linda was the first one of the housekeeping staff to speak to him, and he asked her to relay the day’s schedule to the rest of the maids. Then, after backtracking to his room, he headed to the kitchen to clean his used teacup and return it to its cabinet. There, as he might have anticipated, he found Iris sweeping the hearth in front of the wood-burning stove. A tray of cinnamon-raisin rolls sat on top of it, their icing stripes melting into a caramelized glaze. Their sweet, heavy smell made Peter want to gag.

Iris looked up from her task, seeming unsurprised, but happy to see him all the same. “Good morning, Mr. Walter,” she said cordially. “How are you feeling today?”

“Fine,” Peter lied as he approached the sink. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Miriam is, would you?”

“Outside, I think. She decided to take on washing duty today, and last I heard she was hanging things up on the clotheslines.”

“Oh. I suppose I should find her. I didn’t get a chance to speak with her this morning. Had to give the schedule to Linda.” The longer Peter talked, the more unsettled he felt. He hoped that Miriam would take her sweet time hanging the laundry up. That day’s fit of morning sickness didn’t seem willing to waver anytime soon.

“I was wondering why the commands came through her.”

Under Iris’s watchful eyes, Peter felt more naked than ever. He fought his every instinct to keep his back to her, to slouch over or curl into himself. If he made a conspicuous effort to hide his belly, it would only raise more suspicion. His nerves hummed with tension. His hand was shaking as he placed the teacup back in the cabinet. All of a sudden, he found himself wishing that he hadn’t opted for that second cup of tea.

As she studied him, Iris’s eyes clouded over with concern. “M-Mr. Walter, are you alright?”

“Huh?” Peter glanced quickly at her, feeling almost as surprised as he sounded. It wasn’t so much Iris’s question that had caught him unaware, but the rapid hammering of his own heart and the dizzy sensation in his skull that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. His nerves had turned his hands cold and clammy. He felt his insides squeezing in on themselves, and the more Iris stared, the worse it seemed to get.

“I-it’s only... you seem a little...” the maid tried to explain. Before she could get any further, Peter’s stomach painfully lurched, and he clapped a hand over his mouth as his throat convulsed, threatening to spill what was left of the tea he’d been drinking. His eyes went wide and stared blankly ahead of him, and his face grew hot with embarrassment. _Not here_ , he thought desperately. _Please, not here, not now..._

He choked again, and managed to cough up a few words. “I... I need a minute.”

He left the room faster than he thought possible, before Iris could ask any more questions, and squirrelled himself away into the nearest bathroom. He barely made it into the room before his mouth started to water. The door swung almost shut behind him as he staggered on but only managed to reach the sink before he lost control.

The jarring sound of vomit hitting porcelain was sickening on its own. Peter gripped the edge, slumped over and heaving, as the vile-tasting fluid spilled out of his mouth. He hadn’t eaten anything, thank heavens. It was nothing but tea. The thought was no comfort, though, since there was nothing he could do to change the smell, the corrosive yellow stains that gathered around the drain, or the sheer fact that _he had just vomited into the goddamned sink._

Not a moment too soon, there was a gentle knock at the door. “M-Mr. Walter?” a voice timidly asked.

Peter coughed, sending more bitter residue up his throat, and struggled to form a response when his own lungs seemed to unwilling to breathe. “I-Iris,” he choked, “D-don’t come in. You... you don’t want to see this.”

The air was heavy and silent for a moment. Peter waited for a response of some kind from Iris, but none ever came. There was nothing to offset the repulsive, recurrent sound of his own gagging. It took a long time for his stomach to stop seizing up and forcing more up his throat. Peter weakly leaned his weight against the sink, his breath haggard and tasting of acid, his fingers gripped to the edge of the basin. He rested his forehead on the cold metal arc of the tap. His face was burning. He coughed once, then twice more before he finally felt that the episode had ended. He ran the tap to try and rinse away the stains, both those in the sink and remaining in the corners of his mouth. When he looked up at the mirror, he thought he saw a shadow in the small sliver of light that leaked in from the hallway and through the door, which stood slightly ajar.

“Iris, what are you-”

“I-I’m not looking, Mr. Walter! I promise,” Iris affirmed, almost too quickly.

“I-it’s fine now, if you do,” Peter croaked. “I... I think it’s over.” He put his back to the sink and sank down to the floor. Purging his system for the nth time seemed to have drained all of his energy. He had to get off of his feet. He settled on the floor and pulled his legs up to his chest. The door creaked as it swung open, and Iris hesitantly crept in. She kept her eyes averted, even as she stepped into the room.

“Is there anything I can do, Mr. Walter? I could try and make that tea for you again, or send out for a doctor, or...” Finally, she risked a glance at him. Once she did, her gaze was fixated “Oh my goodness. Mr. Walter...”

“Please don’t say anything,” Peter feebly requested, and Iris complied right away. “Listen, I... I’m fine. This happens, from time to time. I’ll... I’ll be set right in a few minutes or so. I just need some time.”

“But... oh, you look awful.” Iris’s words were a near whisper. “I-I mean... not you. _You_ don’t look awful, only... Are you sure I shouldn’t send for anyone?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then... if you’d allow me...” Her knees bent, and she began to kneel down to his level. Her hand reached out, surely intending to feel his forehead for a temperature that Peter knew she would find. She would find him feverish, among any number of other things...

“Don’t!” he warned without thinking, putting a hand up to stave her off. Iris backed away, wide-eyed and shaky as if his reaction had scared her, and the very implication tugged at Peter’s heartstrings. “Y-you shouldn’t, is what I meant. I... I don’t want to get you sick too.”

The idea seemed to strike a chord with Iris. “What?”

It took a moment for the significance of Peter’s words to sink in. Once it did, inspiration struck him like lightning. “I’m afraid I might be contagious,” he went on. “Johona has been telling me that she’s begun to feel sick as well. I meant to tell Miriam as soon as I could, but I just haven’t had the chance.”

“Oh,” Iris murmured. “Oh, that’s terrible.”

“It isn’t so bad yet, for her. And she knows how to control it better than I do. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, though. Least of all you.”

The maid gazed pensively at her employer. Her teeth worried at her lip and her fingers fidgeted with the edge of her apron as she studied him and thought. “But... is there anything I can do to help you? There has to be something.”

“Well, if you would... you could escort me to my room. Make sure I don’t collapse on the stairs or anything of the like.” He let slip a little nervous laughter, hoping to lighten the situation.

“Whatever you wish, Mr. Walter.” Iris’s hand twitched towards him again for a brief moment before she took it back. “R-right, you said... But... D-do you need a hand?”

“I think I can manage.” Peter’s legs didn’t feel nearly as much like lead as they had a few minutes before. Using the sink ledge as a support, he pulled himself to his feet and ventured out from the room. Iris stayed close behind, keeping a comfortable distance between them. He silently thanked her for it. Once at his room, Iris stayed outside and watched Peter make his way back to his bed. He laid back on the mattress and took a breath. He wasn’t nearly as tired out as he used to be during his nauseous fits, but there was no situation that he could think of that would make him object to a few more hours lying in bed.

“Is there anything else you need?” Iris asked. “Water, or some of that medicinal tea from Johona?”

“No. It’s probably best if I don’t try to drink anything for a while.” Peter blinked slowly, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before turning his head to look at Iris. He found her watching him in her usual way, with a warm, attentive look on her face. There was no need, and Peter knew he would be just fine, but there was something reassuring in knowing that she cared so much. He smiled at her in the hopes that she would understand what he meant.

Iris smiled back at him, her eyes softening a little with the golden late-morning light that streamed through the window. Then she lowered her gaze, and her line of sight wandered away from Peter’s face. His core felt tight and twisted, and dread pooled in his insides. _What is she looking at?_ he thought, thrown into a sudden panic. It took him too long to realize.

His right hand was resting on his stomach. He’d thought nothing of it when he had laid down, hadn’t even noticed. He had done it any number of times before, regardless of whether there was something to hide under his hand or not, and it didn’t matter if Iris knew that about him. But it did now, and that was all that Peter cared about. His insecurity pulled him like puppet strings, and he moved his hand away and rolled over onto his side, facing away from the maid at his door.

He thought he heard her sigh, then the latch of the door clicked shut. Peter felt guilty for a moment. He hadn’t dismissed her properly, and he knew how sensitive Iris was. As soon as that thought passed through his head, he began to berate himself. How stupid could he be, to be so blatant about his condition? It was a borderline announcement. He might as well have just told her outright. _Iris, I’m pregnant, don’t ask me to explain how, because nobody understands it, but that’s just something that’s happening now._

He remembered what the plan for that day was supposed to be. He cringed at his own foolishness. Here he was, lying torpid like a fainting victim, when he should have been talking with Miriam and figuring out a solution to his predicament. Johona would be so disappointed in him. And now that he’d failed once, he would have to do it all over again the next day the maids came in. And if he didn’t work something out then, he would have to do it again and again and again and by the time he finally had a solution, Iris would already know the truth.

Peter sighed and closed his eyes. This endeavor was shaping up to be a lot more complicated than expected.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh boy, things are getting serious now.  
> I kind of lost my ability to read at around 2 AM. So if there are any typos or other things that I glossed over, it's because I am literally losing my functionality as a human. I am barely keeping my eyes open as I type this. It definitely isn't helping the fact that I have to wake up before 10 tomorrow. Or would that technically be today? Hell, it's today when I say it's today. Nothing is stopping me.  
> Anyway. He gettin the tum. Sum ppl know he gots th tum. What do?  
> Was that even a sentence.  
> I'm very tired.  
> I need to stop.  
> See you next chapter.


	9. Confessional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S HALLOWEEN.  
> Or three days prior. Close enough. Halloween is on a Monday, and if that doesn't tell you how much this year has sucked, I don't know what does. First I was inspired to create this horrorshow of a fanfiction, and now this. Technically, according to me, it's been Halloween all month. I refuse to be told otherwise.  
> Anyway, here I am with another chapter that made me feel things while I was writing it. Hopefully it will also make you feel things. Although it might not because it rarely does. There are very few things that I get excited over, and somehow, this fan fiction is one of them.  
> Not bothering with tumblr plugs, but reminding you to check some prior chapters for the requested tags to use, just in case somebody somewhere out there wants to shitpost. Also please use blacklisted tags, like "sexpg."  
> Thanking cicada_s, volatileSoloiste and Feep for putting up with all my bullshit, beta reading this and reinforcing my feeble self-confidence. I appreciate everything you guys do for me.  
> I think that's everything. It's 1:37 AM and there's Heathers playing in the background while I write this, so this update might take a while. I fucking love Heathers.  
> TIME TO GET SPOOKY.

 

When Peter finally got his chance to speak to Miriam, he didn’t have to seek her out. She found him first.

It was otherwise quiet that morning. The maids were in, and two days had passed since the last disaster with Iris. She hadn’t come to wake him up, which was unusual, but Peter didn’t mind. She probably thought he’d appreciate some extra rest and likely inferred that he wanted to rescind the request that he’d made ages ago to be awakened when Miriam’s staff arrived, if he wasn’t already. It wasn’t even necessary that day, since he had gotten up before the usual time and been able to see Johona off, taking one last opportunity to discuss their reworked scheme.

Two nights before, with justifiable haste, he’d told her what had transpired between him and Iris as soon as she had arrived home that evening. She was angry with him, for obvious reasons, but it wore off quickly when he repeated to her the lie he had told Iris. With some small footholds to grasp for, she turned her energy towards strategizing instead. The new angle would entail her feigning an illness along with Peter, which she was fairly sure she could pull off. The medicinal tea had been restocked, providing plenty for the both of them to drink, and Peter had tied up one of the many loose ends when he explained away Johona’s milder “presentation.” She could still run with the excuse of going back to her job everyday, albeit now seeing her employer as a patient rather than as an employee. She had promised Peter that she would keep up the ruse for him, but only as long as it took him to take care of the issue with Miriam. Judging by her attitude, she didn’t plan on pretending for very long.

Luck seemed to be on Peter’s side that day when Miriam came to see him first thing. He felt awake, clear-headed, and even his morning sickness was in a better condition than usual. For once in his life, he felt like he could handle the task ahead of him. If only she hadn’t approached him in such a startling way.

Peter had just emerged from clearing his study and was on his way to the lab when the head maid caught sight of him in the downstairs hall. She stepped into his path, thoroughly blocking him, a look of high-octane concern on her face. “Iris told me what happened,” she informed him.

There was no need to explain any further. Startled, Peter took a step back, then stilled and tried to put on a face of composure. “She did?” he asked. “I... I should have known she would,” he sighed after a second’s pause. “It only seems right.”

“A’ course it was. If you’re so ill as to be-”

Peter shivered at the memory. “Please don’t reiterate what happened. I was there.”

“My apologies, Master Walter. Only clarifyin’ what I’ve heard.” Miriam looked around the room, ensuring that the hall was empty, then took a step closer and lowered her voice. “But I’ve had a feeling naggin’ at me for a while now that ye haven’t been tendin’ to this as ye should. I know your, er... your _friend_ is doin’ her best to care fer ye, and I’m not sayin’ I doubt her skill, but... are you sure you don’t want to see another doctor about this? I’ve got a few names in mind, and I can send a message to any of ‘em. All I need is your request.”

“Still trying to get me to take up your offer, eh?”

Miriam nodded with a knowing smile. “It’s always stood, Master Walter.”

“That’s perfect, actually. Because, as it happens...” He paused and took a breath. There was no turning back now. “That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about.”

The head maid’s eyebrows rose, and she leaned in even closer. “Was it, now? What is it you need? I can get in a good word for just about anything.”

Peter recoiled a little at the closeness. “Um... Iris did remember to tell you I was contagious, didn’t she?”

“I ain’t been sick since the Civil War, Master Walter. I’m the last person ye’d have to worry about infectin’.”

“Oh. Well, if you say so.” His jammed his hands into his pockets to hide his nervously twitching fingers. “I actually don’t need you to get me into contact with anyone. I only wanted to make a request. Now, I don’t want you to take offense to any of this, but... you know how things have transpired. And how I’ve become concerned about Johona, now that she’s fallen ill, too.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Miriam said, studying her employer expectantly.

“Well... you’re my housekeepers. You work closely with my living space, and you have been for a long time. And I’ve no criticisms to give about how well you’ve done. I appreciate everything. I really do. But with the new, um... _developments_ , I’ve become concerned about all the exposure they have to me, and... Well, to be frank, I don’t want to get you or any of the girls sick.”

Miriam’s face fell a little farther with every word that he said. “Pardon me, Master Walter, but I’m not sure I understand what you’re implyin’.”

“I... I know how I must sound right now, and I can’t blame you if anything I’ve said has offended, but... even if you don’t get sick yourself, I feel like having the rest of the girls coming in so often is too much of a risk.” Peter’s nerves were in knots, and they pulled themselves tighter as he spoke. The crestfallen look on Miriam’s face didn’t help in the least. She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her and continued before she could. “I don’t mean that I’ll be letting you go. I know that’s what it sounds like, but to be honest, if it weren’t for you and your staff, I’d probably be living like a cockroach.”

The look on the head maid’s face lightened a little, though the deep lines of concern etched into her freckled face didn’t smooth out in the least. “Then what sort of a request are ye lookin’ to make?”

“Well, I know I need outside help keeping this place in order,” Peter began cautiously. “But I can’t have so many people coming in so often if there’s a risk of someone contracting something from me. If, hypothetically, I had just _one_ maid who came in on a more regular basis... even a residential, if that’s at all possible, to tidy up wherever it’s needed, that would probably be a little more ideal than the arrangement I have now.”

That seemed to have caught Miriam’s interest. “Are you lookin’ to hire from me, or do you want another name that I can give you?”

“You and the girls have been working here for years now. I’d venture to say that you know the house even better than I do. If you’d be willing to let me take someone on, I would be eternally grateful.”

“I suppose I could,” she said pensively. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her gaze to the far wall, tapping her fingers on her elbow as she thought. “I’ve only ever had to contend with a request like this a few rare times, ye know.”

“Have you ever been able to work it out?”

“Only twice. Most times, the owner of the house gets irritated after a while, or wasn’t really aware of what they were askin’ for, takin’ a new person into the house and all.”

“I’ve already brought Johona in,” he pointed out. “And I have more than enough space for someone else to stay.”

Miriam’s eyebrows knitted in concentration, and slowly, she began to nod. “True, true. Ye have a point there.” She turned her piercing blue gaze on him. “If ye think ye can manage it, I could let you take someone on.”

Peter could have collapsed under the wave of relief he felt. “Thank you, Miriam,” he gushed. “I can’t begin to tell you how reassuring this is.”

“Before we start makin’ deals, though, ye need to tell me who ye have in mind.”

“Who I have in mind?”

“O’course. Did ye think I’d just hand over _any_ girl from my staff?” Miriam laughed a little at the suggestion, and Peter found it immeasurably reassuring. “Linda’s been sent for once. She was a resident for a few weeks while one of our clients was away from home.”

“Linda would be fairly nice.”

“And Olivia’s been on the staff the longest. If it’s experience ye want, look no further than her.”

“Y-yes, Olivia is good, too, but... not quite what I had in mind.”

Miriam paused and eyed him inquisitively. “Then who was it ye were lookin’ to hire?”

“Well, if you were willing...” Peter had to pause before he said it. He knew it was the best case scenario if the transaction went through: he would have less explaining to do, and his secret would be just a little safer. _Two birds with one stone_ , he reassured himself. “I was hoping that I could take Iris on as a residential maid.”

The request seemed to come as a surprise to Miriam. “Iris?” she parroted his request back to him. “You’re sure she’s the best for the job?”

“She might be new to your staff, compared to the others, but she’s hardworking,” Peter explained. “That isn’t to say the others aren’t, but Iris, she seems...” _Servile. Obsequious. Submissive._ Peter couldn’t seem to find an inoffensive way to describe her disposition. “She’s especially, um... dedicated. And she seems to be fonder of me than any of the others.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Master Walter. The other girls find you perfectly sociable.”

“You know what I’m referring to, Miriam.”

The head maid pursed her lips and sighed. Peter could have guessed that he and Johona weren’t the only ones to notice Iris’s strange attachment to him. Besides that, there was the fact that she had been reporting every last one of her findings to her manager. “Ye have a point. I’ll notify her of the suggestion.”

“Perfect. I would appreciate it so much if you did.”

It seemed then that the conversation was complete enough, and Miriam finally took a step back. “I’ll speak to her before the end of her shift,” she promised as she turned to continue down the hall.

“Miriam, one last thing,” Peter called after her. The maid stopped and returned to him, waiting and attentive. “If Iris says yes,” he began, though he wasn’t sure how thoroughly the young maid’s input would be considered in Miriam’s decision, “I’d like to speak with her personally. She already knows the gist of my situation, but I still need to ensure that she understands everything she has to.”

“I’ll see to it that she does,” Miriam assured him. “Next morning we’re in, I’ll send her your way.”

“Thank you,” Peter said at last. And finally, the conversation was over. He and Miriam parted ways, and he disappeared into the quiet solitude of the lab. It was calming to be alone again, empty as it felt. With no more prying eyes and most of the plan laid out successfully, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

There was only one more step to take. And, unfortunately, Peter suspected it was going to be the hardest.

* * *

The day after was uneventful. Without the maids to question or intervene, Johona had left for work at her usual time, and Peter had gone back downstairs to the lab to continue his work. Starting was always the slowest part. The steel bones of his second creation were lying on one of the slabs, forming a faceless armature. He still had yet to finish fastening them properly. In the process, he figured he may as well begin his work on the third. The bones for this one were cast a little thinner than the others, since by the time he had gotten around to it, he had begun to run out of workable steel to melt. He still felt that his last automaton would hold together well enough. Might not be as hardy as the others, but they wouldn’t need to be. They were only meant to be musicians, after all.

It took him a few hours of referring to sketches, tinkering with joints and fasteners and other small parts before he finally got the third skeleton laid out. He was ready to start to work with the spot welder and screws when he remembered his second creation. He glanced back at it, and the armature seemed to stare back at him with his blind, deconstructed absence of a face. Peter had barely even begun on him, and yet here he was, somehow already distracted and working on another one. He considered putting his last project on hold to work on the second automaton, just to be fair, but that wouldn’t help his conscience, either. No matter what he chose to do or not do, the first automaton was still lying on her table, still and sleeping like a metal corpse, still with no shells to cover her skeletal arms, her mechanical body and her eerily skull-like face. Her creator gazed at her, feeling inexplicably guilty. She would be autonomous one day, as close to living as something inorganic could get, or at least she would be if everything turned out as he hoped it would. But for now, she was incomplete and inactive, no more alive than a brass-and-copper sculpture.

Peter sighed and laid down his tools. He wouldn’t be able to focus like this. Maybe it would be best if, for a while, he stopped worrying about the outward completeness of his creation and thought more about the state of her brothers. The first was the only one who had her core in place. He had yet to build the devices for the others. He wanted finish as much of the basic machinery as he could, he resolved. Just enough so all of his creations could have a place to house their cores once they were finished. That would even their odds a bit. He would feel better then, he convinced himself, and he’d be able to continue.

Piecing together the third automaton’s bones took almost the whole day. That was how it felt, anyway, when Peter worked for some long, indefinite time without looking at a clock. By the time he finally did, he decided it was time he stood back to take a more objective look at his progress. He did, and the moment his observation began, he let out a dejected sigh. It was disappointing, really. He had hoped to get more finished. Johona would be returning soon, and he’d have only another cluttered lab table to show for it.

His hands were stained to the elbow with grease and shavings, as they perpetually were, and a small portion had been smeared onto his face and into his hair. He had made enough of a mess for one day, he decided, and it was probably a wise suggestion to find something else to do, or else he would develop a permanent hunch in his spine from spending his every waking moment leaning over a slab.

It had been a while since he last tried to work with blue matter. In the past few months, he had come to find the process of summoning the substance to be an irritation, almost more so than it was worth. Most of the time, the matter disappeared only moments after solidifying, as it had almost always done. More often than before, though, he was able to keep it in his hands for longer periods of time. A few times he had tried to enclose it in one of the cores. That was where the finicky substance seemed to draw the line.

It never wanted to cooperate with him when he tried to scrape it off of his skin and seal it into a core. He’d given himself a lifetime’s worth of cuts and abrasions trying to do it, but every time it was the same; the matter would dissolve, or cling to him and refuse to move, or melt into liquid and slip through his fingers to vaporize on the floor. Sometimes he tried again, others he gave up, and far more than once his own frustration had brought him close to tears. He tried to blame the baby for making him so volatile, but he knew what the real reason was. The weeks had bombarded him with failure after failure, and all he had to show for it was another single drop of matter in the first automaton’s core. It had been only the size of a marble, and had since fused with the small aggregation that already sat dim and useless in the little prison of glass and steel. It still wasn’t anywhere near enough to bring his creation to life, or even to rouse a part of her from her stillness.

He set to work reluctantly. He had to force himself to focus on the task before him. It was especially difficult, knowing he no longer had the whole day ahead of him to spend. That might have been the cause for his first few failures, his inability to focus leading him to lose the small concentrations of matter that he managed to capture. They evaporated, as they almost always did. Then, after a few more attempts, he got it to stay. It was only a few moments’ worth of time with the substance in his hands. His head started to lighten with the usual foolish hope that he felt at times like this. He thought he was getting closer, that before long he’d be able to make the matter stay, stabilize it, maybe even fit it in the core. It had never happened, but that didn’t change the way he felt when the substance sat pliable and solid in his hand.

Eight minutes. That was the longest he had kept the blue matter in the past weeks. He summoned it one more time, and it stayed. He started to count the minutes off, glancing at a clock every few seconds as he cradled the small collection of luminescent blue fluid in his hands, letting it play on his fingers and get a feel for the surface of his skin. One. Two. Four. He was coming up fast on his record.

 _Maybe_ , he thought, glancing at the first automaton’s core. _Maybe, if I’m lucky, it’ll be today._

Five minutes. He carefully approached his sleeping creation, fingers curled delicately around the mass of blue in his hand. The core was right in front of him. All he had to do was get it in, somehow, and she would wake up. He’d be a success. He lowered the hand holding the matter down beside the core, his other thumb poised to throw the latch and open up the tightly sealed shell. Then he stopped.

Something about this didn’t feel right. He stared down at the glowing lump of blue in his hand, then at the substance in the core. Its glow had seemed so much stronger before. Its light seemed to be growing steadily weaker the longer it stayed in its enclosure. So weak, in fact, that the blue seemed almost transparent in comparison to the bright material that pooled in his hand. He turned his attention to it, focusing on it with every fiber of his being. That light. Whatever the change was, it had to mean something. It couldn’t just be a coincidence.

As Peter stared at the matter in his hand, the ethereal swirls on the surface writhed and twisted, gathering together and stretching apart, almost like a living thing. He stared, and the blue matter almost seemed to be staring back. And all of a sudden, he found himself asking a single question, one that seemed to consume his mind all at once.

_What are you?_

Next thing Peter knew, he was lying on the floor.

He sat up abruptly, unsure of how he had gotten there. He didn’t remember falling. He didn’t feel like he had. There was no pain he could feel anywhere. Nowhere on his body, anyway. Nothing that might have resulted from him hitting the floor. His head, on the other hand, was a different story.

As soon as he was upright, an incessant pounding took up residence in Peter’s skull. He gritted his teeth and exhaled heavily through them. _Christ, what fresh hell is this?_ he asked himself.

He brought a hand up beside his head to rub at his temples. The ache didn’t ease, and then he remembered. The blue matter. He’d had it. It had been in his hand, and he had been about to enclose it in his automaton’s core. And then... Then...

Peter moved his hands away from his head and stared at both of them at once. They were empty. White, weathered skin glared up at him from both his palms, showing no evidence that either of them had ever held anything. The matter was gone. He’d been so close. He almost had it, and then... what? He couldn’t even begin to theorize what might have happened.

“Damn it!” Peter shouted out into the emptiness of the lab. He mindlessly slammed his fist into the side of the lab table. The incomplete automaton rattled on top of it, her unsecured limbs inching a little towards the edge. Hastily, Peter stood up, ignoring the throbbing in his skull, and set to work putting her back in her place. Once she was back in order, he glanced at the clock. A little after six in the evening. Johona was definitely upstairs, more than likely wondering where he was. So he forced himself to leave his projects where they stood. He had more days to finish them. Maybe in some up ahead, his mind would be a little less chaotic.

He found Johona in the kitchen, setting out the day’s haul from the marketplace near the hospital where she worked. They talked casually of their respective days and cooked together, as had become custom for Peter over the weeks that she had been living with him. He noticed her glancing down past his face on occasion, and he had a suspicion that he knew what she was looking at.

It wasn’t anything new to her. She knew what was happening to him. She’d seen it, even touched it when she had examined him only a few days before, weighed and measured him to map his progress. He was showing a little earlier than usual, she had said, probably because he was so slim and any difference in his form would be more obvious than it might be on a woman. The heartbeat was still there, and she had let him listen to it. So nothing had changed, except for him.

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked him a little bit after dinner.

It took a moment for the question to register, and even longer for Peter to work out an answer to give her. “I’m not sure anymore. That really depends on what you’re asking about.”

“Could be anything. Tell me whatever you think is relevant.” she said. But when her friend didn’t answer and continued cleaning dishes without her, she went on. “You have the plans with Miriam sorted out, so that’s something off your chest. And maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll find out what Iris has been thinking all this time.” She affectionately nudged his shoulder. “That’ll be exciting, won’t it?”

“I’m sure it will be,” Peter listlessly replied, not looking up from the sink.

Johona sighed and stuck her hands into the dishes alongside his. “Difficult day?”

“You could say that.”

“But you’ve lost matter at least a million times before.”

“Maybe I have, but never like this.”

“Well, it’s worth saying that whatever had made you lose the matter, it was beyond your control. You know, fainting spells are pretty common when it comes to-”

“This _wasn’t_ a fainting spell, Johona,” Peter insisted. “It was something else. It was all so sudden, it felt like I was standing one second, and the next, I was waking up on the floor. No dizziness, no drowsiness, _nothing_. It just happened, all on its own, without a warning of any kind.”

His friend glanced skeptically at him from the other side of the sink. “Then what do you think brought it on?”

“I can’t say. I can’t even guess,” he confessed. “All I remember is standing there next to the automaton. The blue matter was in my hand. I had been holding it for a while. Then, before I could even get her core open, I looked at it, and I got this feeling-”

“Was it lightheadedness? Pain? Anything at all?”

“No. It was more like a fixation, like I was being put in a trance. I was staring at it, and I couldn’t look away, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, my head hurt like the devil, and the matter was gone.” He paused, and the space between them was silent for a moment, save for the _clink_ of dishes. “This is probably going to sound crazy to you,” he added after the sink had been cleared, “but it felt almost like the matter didn’t _want_ to be captured.”

“It’s unlikely, but not an outlandish way to think,” Johona assured him. “I sometimes scold my medical instruments if they don’t cooperate with me.”

“I’d be surprised if there was anything in this world that you _wouldn’t_ scold.”

Johona giggled in spite of herself, then jabbed a hand at Peter’s midsection in retaliation. He cried out and reeled back, startled. The reaction only served to make his friend laugh even harder. Peter, on the other hand, was not amused. He instinctively wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to protect his belly.

“That wasn’t funny,” he said indignantly.

“I-I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Johona responded, although she didn’t sound like she meant it at all. The snickering finally faded from her voice. “It’s only that you’re so sensitive all of a sudden. Even _you_ must find it a little bit comical.”

“I don’t, especially not when you try and touch me when I’m not expecting it.” He turned away from her and hastily dried his hands on a dishcloth before roughly tossing it in her direction. “You’ve worked with pregnancies before. Don’t women hate it when people touch them as well?”

“A lot of them do, but not all of them,” she explained. “And the way they feel kind of varies, depending on the situation. You never complain about me touching your stomach when I’m examining you.”

“That’s because I know it’s necessary, so I expect that it’s going to happen.”

“So in a medical situation, you don’t mind at all,” she noted. “Then what about this?” With a gentle hand, Johona turned Peter towards her and drew a little closer to him. Carefully, she reached forward and laid her hand on his belly.

Immediately, Peter felt his core tense up, his body still overreacting to any sort of contact near where the creature inside him resided. His first instinct was to pull away, but he convinced himself not to. Johona remained calm, looking him steadily in the eye as she held her hand where it was. A strained, nervous moment passed, but eventually, his nerves began to relax. Peter slowly became accustomed to the weight of his friend’s hand resting against his faintly swollen abdomen.

“It’s strange,” he admitted. “I’m not sure whether I like the feeling of it or not.”

“Probably because no one has ever touched you like this before,” Johona said softly. She turned her eyes down to where her hand rested and traced her thumb in a small circle on the fabric of her friend’s vest, making him shiver in the process. “Now that I’ve gotten this far, I almost don’t want to stop.”

“I’d appreciate if you did,” Peter stated. That finally got Johona to take her hand back. With her touch gone, he took a step back and glanced toward the doorway to the hall. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“No, but the clock hasn’t gone off yet. Why do you ask? Have a date you need to get to?”

The engineer scoffed. “If I did, I probably wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in right now.”

Johona smiled a little and playfully pushed his shoulder. “I’d wager you need to lighten up a little,” she jovially said. “I saw you had some Shakespearean comedies in stock. You remember what we used to do in our free time back when we were studying?”

“You mean making fools of ourselves in the Cavalcadium courtyard?”

“No, I mean having a bit of fun. Come on. You had the best Benedick impression I’ve ever seen.”

“I haven’t read out loud since-”

“Since who cares how long it’s been? No time like the present to start again.” Johona took him by the hand and gave his fingers a friendly squeeze. “I know you didn’t just do it to watch the rest of us. You used to enjoy it, too.”

Peter sighed and surrendered. “I did. And you have a point. I did miss it, a little.”

A smile lit up on Johona’s face, and the two of them left for the library, walking side by side. There had been a great weight hanging over Peter’s head for the entire day; that was the impending conversation he’d have to have with Iris the following day.

From the little that Peter knew about Iris, he gathered that she was probably quite caring. He knew she was sensitive. Hopefully that would have some bearing on how understanding she was willing to be. She had done all manner of things to earn her salt before, either at his command of Miriam’s. But what he planned to ask of her now was something entirely different. There was no predicting how she would react to the truth. And, even if she accepted what she told him as fact, it was impossible to be sure whether or not she would be willing to stay with him and do what he asked of her. It was only natural at that point for Peter to fear the worst.

But for now, that matter was beside the point. He still had time to gather his courage. A few hours remained between the present and the confrontation he would eventually have to face. And for the moment, his worries could be stalled, if only until tomorrow.

* * *

Johona stayed at the manor the next day. She woke Peter up half an hour before the maids arrived to go over the plan with him and brew him a cup of tea a little stronger than the last one he’d had, just to make sure his morning sickness wouldn’t interrupt him a second time. The remedy worked as well as it usually did to quell Peter’s stomach, but it did absolutely nothing for his nerves. The thought of revealing his secret to anyone, a hideous secret that was many levels of incriminating at once, made him want to shrink away from the world as a whole and retreat into himself until he disappeared.

He didn’t want to tell Iris the truth. He just knew that she wouldn’t take it well. That is, if she hadn’t already figured it out for herself. Peter couldn’t tell which scenario he predicted would be worse.

Miriam and her staff arrived right on schedule. Peter and Johona were waiting for them, both of them holding a steaming cup of the nurse’s herbal remedy. Peter made a point of keeping his distance from the girls as they walked in and took up their usual posts, each having claimed one portion of the house as her own domain to clean. Peter felt almost guilty about having to disrupt the clockwork order of it all. But he didn’t have very much time to think on it, since Miriam found him before it could spend more than a minute on his mind.

“Well, Master Walter,” she addressed him, approaching fast and leaning close to him, seemingly unafraid of illnesses of any sort. “I’ve mentioned your request to Iris, and she’s shown quite a bit of interest in taking up your offer. I let her know that ye wanted to speak with her personally.”

“Thank you so much, Miriam,” he said, a small portion of his crushing responsibility lifted from his shoulders. “Did she say anything on the subject?”

“No, nothing much. Only had quite the positive reaction. I had no time or place to give her, though, so ye need to work that bit out for yourself. Just let me know when ye’d like to see her, and I can fetch her for ye.”

“I appreciate your consideration, Miriam, but I think I can manage on my own,” Peter assured her. “I’m sure Iris will find her way to me soon enough.” The corner of his mouth twitched up into half a smile at the thought.

“I’ll leave ye to it then, Master Walter,” the head maid formally finished. She turned from her employer and set off to relay his commands to her employees. Peter watched her go, and an inexplicably wistful feeling rose up in his chest. If things worked out as expected, this could be the last time he was seeing her for who knew how long. He knew he couldn’t afford the risk of keeping the maids staffed in his house, but the manor felt so empty without them. He would miss having them around, Miriam in particular.

With a strained effort, Peter left the foyer and traveled upstairs to his study. He had purposely left design sketches and open books scattered across his desk, just to have an excuse to keep the room clear for the day. He entered and shut the door behind him, planning on keeping himself occupied with plotting the next steps of his project until Iris arrived.

Sure enough, only a few minutes after he had settled in the study, he heard the quiet scuffle of shoes and a scouring brush on the floor outside. Peter rose from his desk chair and went to the door. He pushed it open a crack and peered through the small sliver of space. Iris was outside, kneeling on the floor and scrubbing at the tiles in the hallway. She didn’t look up when the door creaked open, although Peter was sure that she’d heard it. Her movements slowed a little, then regained their speed. He watched her for a moment, debating whether or not to call her in, and soon decided he’d rather not interrupt her work. Whether that was because of his own hesitation or out of courtesy for her, he couldn’t say. All the same, he closed the door and returned to his desk to busy himself with his scientific endeavors.

There was a knock at the door a while later. At the sound, Peter put down the materials he was reading and raised himself up from his chair. Was it Iris? Admittedly, it was unlike her to be so forward.

Before Peter could speculate any further, the door was pushed open and Johona swept her way inside, barefoot, a blanket thrown over her shoulders and a cup of tea balanced in her hands. “She’s right outside, Walter. What the hell are you waiting for?” she chidingly asked.

“She’s in the middle of something,” Peter irately replied. “I can’t interrupt her. You know what happens when she gets mixed commands. She doesn’t need to spread herself so thinly for my sake.”

“But what about the conversation?” his friend pried. “You can’t just put it off again. We’re not getting any younger here. And this-” She gestured at his stomach. “-is not getting any smaller.”

“I know. I don’t need you to tell me.” Peter sighed and looked puzzlingly at the door for a moment before he decided to approach it and open it. Iris was kneeled on the floor outside, still scrubbing away, just a touch closer to him than she had been before. “Iris?” he called out to her.

The maid looked up without a second to spare. “Yes, Mr. Walter?”

“Once you’re finished with that, could you come into the study for a spell?” he asked. “I, er... I need to talk to you about a few things.”

Iris’s interest seemed to be piqued. Her eyebrows rose, and her eyes gained an inquisitive spark. “Is this about the new arrangement?” she inquired.

“Yes, actually. Just... come in, whenever you’re ready. No need to rush what you’re already doing.”

“Of course, Mr. Walter.” With that, she went back to her task at hand, though Peter noticed that she was definitely scrubbing with more vigor than before. He put the thought to the back of his mind and slipped back into the room, pulling the door closed after him.

“Well,” Johona prompted, settling herself into a corner with her tea in her lap. “How much longer do you think she’ll be?”

“Not sure, but it can’t be very much,” Peter replied. “Iris is a fairly fast worker, when she needs to be.”

Johona pursed her lips and sighed through her nose, her eyes fixed on the door with an unenthused look. “You know, this would probably go a lot easier if you didn’t stall so much.”

“I’m not stalling.”

“You are, a little bit. Frankly, I’ve found that the anticipation of something is a lot worse than the actual event itself. If you had gotten this out of the way a little earlier, it wouldn’t be weighing on you so much.”

“But I _am_ getting it out of the way, Johona.”

“Only because I pushed you to do it.” She took a sip of tea. “I’ve started to think you might have a fear of confrontations.”

“Well, in this case, I would venture to say that confrontation is a reasonable thing to fear.”

The study was quiet for a while afterward, Peter having returned to his work with the designs and Johona poring over a few books that her friend had stored up in his workspace. Their intentions for a conversation had been made clear, and only thing left for them to do was wait.

As Peter sat at his desk, trying to focus on his work, he found himself getting repeatedly distracted. He chalked it up to nerves. As circumstances stood, he was moments away from exposing the most scandalous secret he’d ever had. Somehow, though, that didn’t seem to cover all of the feelings that seemed to accompany his lapsing concentration. The longer Peter waited for Iris to show, the more he realized that he was becoming hyperaware of his own body. His attention turned introspective every few minutes, and when it did, he was suddenly able to feel everything. He had conscious control of each breath he took, felt the pulsing of his heart in his chest, and heard his eyelids clip together each time he blinked. Most of all, he felt the fabric of his shirt brushing against the skin of his stomach. At that time, it felt more sensitive than ever. His instincts were telling him to curl up and hide it. He had to fight them off to keep his mind on track. Still, his efforts didn’t prove very effective, and he had gotten very little done by the time he heard another knock at the door.

“Mr. Walter,” Iris’s soft, courteous voice addressed him from the hallway. “The floor is finished. You said wanted to speak to me?”

Peter was up from his desk and at the door to pull it open in a matter of seconds. Iris stood before him, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, seeming more eager than ever to listen to him. “Y-yes, yes, of course,” he said. He pulled the door open halfway and stepped back to let Iris step inside. Once she did, he leaned out through the doorway and glanced down the hall in either direction. The whole expanse was empty. Safe. Finally satisfied, he retreated into the study and shut the door.

Although the room had everyone it needed for the discourse to begin, nothing happened. An awkward silence hung in the air as Peter and Iris stood facing one another, looking into each others’ eyes, but neither one of them apparently able to speak. Peter knew what had to be said. He knew, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to actually let it out of his mouth.

Johona shifted in her corner and rose to her feet to lean against the wall. It seemed that she was the only one in the room brave enough to break the silence, even though all she said was “Well, now.”

Peter knew that she was trying to push him onward. He took a breath before clearing his throat and finally speaking. “Iris. Um... thank you for joining us here.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Walter,” the maid modestly replied.

“You’ve been doing well lately, I hope?”

“I-I’m fine. I can’t help but feel that I should be the one asking _you_ that question.” Iris stopped for a moment to revise her words. “I-I mean, what with everything that happened last time... It’s only that I’ve been thinking of you so much, sir. I... it is a bit soothing to me knowing you’re alright.” She looked up at his face and Peter noticed a subtle light behind her eyes. “I-I should say that you are certainly looking a lot better, though.”

The compliment brought a faint tint of blue to Peter’s cheeks. “Am I?”

Iris nodded in affirmation. “Y-yes, definitely. You’re... absolutely radiant today.”

Johona smiled at them both from the corner. “Yes, he’s just glowing, isn’t he?”

Peter glanced sideways at his friend, and his face quickly turned from warm to searing hot. He looked away from both women in the room, trying to will the blush away and move on. In spite of his nerves, a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Th-thank you,” he stammered.

“Um, y-you... you wanted to discuss the new arrangement?” Iris hesitantly asked, her fingers fidgeting behind her back with the ends of her apron strings.

“Ah. Y-yes, the arrangement,” Peter continued for her. “You being a resident maid. Not working in shifts anymore. I, erm... I feel like before anything else, I should ask you how you feel about it.”

“Is there a way I _should_ feel about it?”

“Well, you should want to take the job, for a first. From what Miriam’s told me, you expressed some interest when she informed you of my request.”

“You could say that I did,” Iris replied with a small, knowing smile.

“Right. Th-that’s good, then...” Peter trailed off, thinking for a while on what else he should say, so long as it had nothing to do with the ticking time bomb in the back of his mind that was closer to detonation with every word he said. “No issues with other employers, then?”

“None that I’ve been notified of. Miriam has plenty of other maids in her staff. I’m sure she’ll get along without me.”

“And your current living situation? Will that be easily worked out? I can assist with anything you need.”

“It isn’t an issue, actually. The place I’m staying now is... um, well, it’s not the most permanent of  residences. My, er... m-my landlord is probably expecting me to leave at any time. I’ll only need to let him know when I plan on going elsewhere, and it’ll equivalently work out on its own.”

“Fantastic.” Peter drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “We should probably work out at some point which room you’ll be staying in. Make sure you’re comfortable where you are and everything.”

“I-it’s really no trouble, Mr. Walter. I can be comfortable just about anywhere.”

“But if you had to pick a room here to stay in, which one would it be?”

The question seemed to take Iris by surprise, since she started a little before dropping her gaze off to the side. “I-I’ve never thought much about it before. In fact, I... I don’t think it’s extensively important, even now. T-to be honest, Mr. Walter, I’d sleep in the kitchen if you asked me to.”

Peter almost laughed at the suggestion. “I don’t think it’s ever going to come to that, but it’s reassuring that you’re flexible. I’m sure we’ll find a place to your liking.”

“On the other hand, is there anything you want to request to make your stay more comfortable?” Johona chimed in, stepping in beside her friend.

“Requests?” Iris puzzled. “I-I don’t think I have any.”

“You’re sure?” Johona pressed. “I’m used to setting up hospital rooms for patients with all kinds of special needs. There’s hardly anything I haven’t arranged for someone before.”

“I appreciate the offer, b-but really, I don’t need anything.”

“That’s fair, if you would prefer it that way. I’m a bit of a minimalist myself,” she went on. “I should have expected as much. You already know that the manor is pretty well-suited for guests, and he’s pregnant, so there will be little to worry about on that matter.”

The study went dead silent. Peter glanced sideways at Johona, his eyes wide and stunned, but the face she turned to him was all but expressionless. Had she really just said what he thought she did? She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have just passed it off that quickly. Cold, heavy dread pooled in Peter’s insides as he looked from his friend to the maid that stood across from them both. She stood frozen, like a wax statue, her eyes huge and glassy. Her skin seemed to pale, dark as it was, and although her mouth hung open, no sound escaped.

An eternity passed, then she took in a tiny gasp of air and choked out a question. “I-I’m sorry, what?”

Peter’s heart sank. “I-Iris...” he tried to begin, but his words were quickly failing.

Johona looked down at the floor, a little shamefully. “We had to tell her somehow,” she pointed out.

“T-tell me what?” Iris stuttered. Her eyes darted frantically back and forth between the two of them. Peter could only imagine what must have been running through her mind.

“Iris, I...” he started over, then sighed and started again. “You deserve to know the truth. I’m not really sick.”

“You aren’t?” She sounded almost relieved when she said it, but it was barely noticeable over the apprehension that made her voice shiver in the air.

“No, I’m not. I never was.”

“Then what was wrong? Why were you...”

Peter swallowed convulsively and glanced back at Johona. “Did you... did you hear what Johona said?”

“I thought I did, but I’m not sure I understood,” Iris unsteadily replied. “I thought she said you were... y-you were...”

“Pregnant,” Johona finished for her. “Yes, you heard me correctly. He’s pregnant.”

Iris stared at Peter, and he saw her eyes drift down from his face. “B-but... what does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. Peter is currently carrying a child.”

“Mr. Walter...” The maid’s wide eyes latched onto Peter’s. “You’re a woman?”

“N-no!” Peter quickly blurted out. “I-I mean... Of course, I’m not. I’m still a man, as far as I know.”

“What he _is_ actually has very little to do with the situation, it seems,” Johona added.

“B-but... if you’re not, then... th-then how...” Iris was starting to ramble again. Her gaze fell to the floor, and she slumped over a little, her hands grasping for dear life at either of her forearms.

“We don’t know how,” Johona said. “In fact, we barely understand anything. All we’ve managed to figure out is that it happened _somehow_ , and now...” She trailed off and gestured at her friend standing beside her.

“I... I’m sorry, I still don’t understand,” Iris murmured. Her eyes had gone unfocused, leaving her staring blankly into space. She swayed a little, and Peter dashed forward to steady her. The maid let out a startled little gasp as he put an arm around her shoulders, but she didn’t protest when he led her to the chair at his desk. Her knees buckled and she sank backwards, landing on the edge of the cushion.

“Iris, listen,” Peter said when the maid remained silent and staring into the void. “I know that this is a lot for you to take in. And you probably don’t believe either of us. But if you would just let us explain...”

“I-I’d like that,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “P-please.”

“Okay.” The engineer kept his distance from her, giving her just enough space to breathe. “Um, where to start... Well, there really isn’t very much of a place. This... I didn’t intend for this to happen. And neither of us is sure how it was even possible in the first place. I’ve suspected that it might have something to do with blue matter radiation, but I don’t even have much proof of that, since I’m not actually sure what the radiation itself _does_. And...” He trailed off for a second. “I’d be a little more eloquent if I had any more to say about it.”

Iris still kept her eyes away from him and stared at the opposite wall, her eyes glazed. Slowly, she began to nod. “Right. If... If that’s what you believe,” she murmured impassively. She stared ahead a few more moments, taking slow, deep breaths, then turned her gaze back to Peter. “I... I’m sorry, Mr. Walter. I’m still having such a hard time wrapping my head around this. How... how long have you known you were... um...”

“Around twelve weeks, if my estimations are correct,” Johona answered. “Although there’s little proof that what he believes might have caused this was actually what brought him to the point he’s at now.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I-It’s not important,” Peter cut in. His heart was throbbing rapidly, and he could already feel his palms starting to sweat. Wasn’t it enough that he had already confessed to being a freak of nature? He’d shocked Iris enough for one day. She didn’t need to hear this.

Immediately, Johona turned to him, a castigating look on her face. “Come on, Peter. Just be honest and tell her. We’ve already come this far, and it might even help her make sense of all of this.”

Her logic made perfect sense to him, but still, Peter found himself hesitating. He chewed at his lip, inhaling but never speaking, feeling the cool liquid dread in his guts crystallize into ice. “I’m not sure I can say this.”

“If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“Then do it. If she chooses not to stay once she knows...”

He cut himself off, unwilling to continue. Johona sighed and turned to Iris, who sat patiently waiting for an explanation. “Iris, how do you feel about homosexuality?”

“Homosexuality?” The maid seemed confused. “Well, I... there isn’t much I know about it, to tell you the truth. I’ve never met someone who’s familiar with it.”

“Right. Well, a few months ago, Peter accidentally slept with a man,” she said flatly. “He seems to think that this is what caused him to conceive.”

Iris gawked at Johona with a deadened look on her face, then her eyes flicked toward her employer, dull with disbelief. “Accidentally?”

“I-I was drunk. _Very_ drunk. It was a mistake,” Peter stuttered, the explanations spilling out almost too quickly. The familiar panic had started to set in.

“B-but...” Iris seemed smaller and more frightened than Peter had ever seen her. “A-are you... are you r-really...”

“No, I’m not,” he assured her. “I’ve never been before, and if I have anything to say about it, this sort of thing won’t ever happen again.”

Iris listened to him and promptly went back to staring blankly, then slumped forward and balanced her arms on her knees and hung her head in her hands, digging her fingers into the thick coils of her hair. She sighed heavily. “I... I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?” Johona gently asked.

“Anything,” Iris burst out, sounding strained and breathy and at a total loss. “What to say. What to think. What to feel. I... I can’t even comprehend any of this. You... y-you...” She looked despondently to Peter. “I had no idea. I could never tell... I-I mean, I knew something about you had changed, but I never could have imagined y-you were... Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“And what would I have said?” Peter said. His words were soft and wavering, quickly losing their stability. “If I could have told you any of this before, when would you have wanted to know? What would you have wanted me to tell you?”

“I... I don’t know,” Iris whimpered, sounding dangerously close to tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face to the ground, raising a shaky hand to cover her mouth. Peter’s heart twisted up hard enough to pull itself loose from the lining of his chest. The information was hurting her. He’d known that it would, but he didn’t have any alternative. There was only this, and whatever would come after... well, he would simply have to live with the consequences.

“Do you understand now, though, Iris?” he asked softly, taking a step closer and kneeling down to her level. She raised her eyes a little, just enough to meet his. “Do you see why I have to ask this of you?”

“I’m trying to,” she choked, blinking back the watery glimmer that threatened to spill over the corners of her eyes. She gazed at him, her eyes now more worried than anything else, and shook her head. “What are you going to do?”

“None of us knows,” he told her. He was too aware of how unsatisfying the answer was, but it was the only one he had. “We couldn’t put a stop to it, so now all that’s left is to wait it out and hope nothing goes wrong. We know how difficult it’s going to be, and I was hoping that we could acquire your help in this.” He reached gingerly for the free hand that rested in her lap and took it in his. “Please, Iris,” he pleaded. “I won’t be able to do this without you.”

Iris seemed caught, for the moment. Peter felt her fingers squeeze around his as she kept her eyes averted and considered his offer. After remaining silent for a painfully long time, she sniffed once and asked,  “Are you planning to keep the child?”

Peter paused for a moment. “Maybe,” he said. “I’m sure that there’s a better home for it than mine. But if everything turns out alright, and it’s born healthy... know that I’m not ruling it out.”

He watched and waited as Iris mulled over his words, her eyes gazing off into the middle distance just past him, biting at her lip and absently pressing her hand and fingers against his. Peter grew more tense and fearful with each passing moment. The maid must have felt how clammy his hands were. All the same, she placed her free hand over the two that were clasped around hers. “I’ll stay with you, Mr. Walter,” she quietly declared. “If you want me that much, then I’ll stay. I’ll help you and Johona, and care for... well, whatever comes afterward.”

Peter almost didn’t believe her when she said it. All this time, he’d been waiting for her to back out and run away, but she hadn’t. Instead, here she was, returning his gesture of alliance and looking directly at him with frightened but determined eyes. His heart felt fit to burst, his throat starting to tighten, and he gasped a little as he inhaled to try and speak. “Thank you,” he said breathlessly. “Oh, Iris, thank you.”

He impulsively reached out and pulled Iris into an embrace. She reacted stiffly at first, like a doll, but it only took her a second to realize what he’d done, and soon her arms had circled around him as well. Peter’s eyes closed, and he pressed his cheek into Iris’s shoulder. It took a while for him to let go, and when he did, Iris’s tears were gone. He put his hands on her forearms, a relieved, delirious smile lighting up his face. “You won’t regret this. I-I promise, I’ll do everything I can to repay you.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Walter,” she softly replied, happiness pulling at the corners of her mouth.

The deal settled, Peter stood up, and Iris followed him to her feet, letting him lead her by her arms. He let go of her and glanced at Johona where she stood behind the desk. She nodded, a silent, satisfied smile playing at her lips. He took a step back from Iris. “Well... I suppose I should let you finish your assigned duties. You don’t have many more days working with the staff, after all.”

“I suppose I should,” Iris agreed.

“When should I expect you to come in?”

“When do you want me in?”

“That depends on how fast you can work things out with your landlord.”

“If that’s all, I can be out of my current residence and move my things here in three days.”

“I’ll expect you then,” he finished decisively.

He turned his attention back to his desk and the multitude of books and papers sprawled out on its surface, and Iris turned and headed for the door. Just as she reached it, she stopped and turned back. “Mr. Walter?” she timidly asked. “I-I have one last question.”

“Ask away,” Peter kindly replied.

“Well... i-if you’ve been, um... _expectant_ for so long, then how come you waited until now to make this request?”

Of all the questions Iris could have asked, that was the absolute last one that Peter would have expected. He stood bolt upright, his attention caught. “There are a few reasons, really,” he explained. “You understand why I couldn’t tell anyone about this. The connotations aren’t good. And that’s only if whoever I told believed me. No one would have. I wouldn’t have had any proof.”

“But do you have proof now?”

He took a second to think, nervously biting his lip as he contemplated her question. He glanced back at Johona, who shrugged indifferently. Taking a deep breath, Peter turned back to Iris and beckoned her over to his side of the room. “Come here,” he said softly.

Iris seemed confused, but she obeyed and approached her employer again. She stood before him, mere inches away, and Peter was sure that she could see how skittish he felt. Still, he undid the lower buttons of his vest, loosening it up to his chest, and offered up a hand to her. “Give me your hand?” he requested.

She did, and he took it carefully in his own and slipped it under the edge of his vest to press it against his stomach. Iris seemed to thrill a little at the sudden contact, which sent a shiver up Peter’s spine as well. He held her hand in place, letting her run her hand over the thin fabric of his shirt and feel the gentle swell of his belly. Her eyes widened, and he knew that she had found it. “Is this really it?” she whispered.

“It is.”

“That’s... amazing.”

“It’s only a recent development,” Peter quietly explained. “And, frankly, I think you might have noticed it before I did.”

She looked up at him. “I didn’t. I only... I thought you were getting better.”

“Well, I am, in a manner of speaking.”

Iris studied him for a split second more before she took her hand back. “I... I should get back to work,” she said sheepishly.

“Go on ahead, then,” Peter said with a smile. Iris didn’t hesitate to do as she was told. She went straight to the door and returned to the hallway, closing it behind her.

“That went well,” Johona said as soon as the maid was gone from the room.

“I’d say it did,” her friend replied as he fastened the buttons of his vest and fixed it overtop his shirt again. “I wish you hadn’t been so blunt, though. You saw the look on her face. Poor thing must have been traumatized.”

“Bluntness aside, it would have happened anyway. If someone had come to you last year- Thaddeus, maybe- and he told you the exact same thing-”

Peter shuddered. “Oh, god. Not him. Please don’t make me think of him like that.”

“But you understand what I’m saying. No matter how it’s put, hearing news like this is always a bit of a shock.” She leaned back against the bookcase and crossed her arms over her chest. “I am fairly surprised about how fast you allowed her to touch you, though.”

“What, that?” Peter sat down at his desk again and scanned the papers scattered before him. “I was only trying to answer her question. Nothing else to it. And it isn’t like you don’t try to do the exact same thing to me every waking moment that we’re in the same room.”

“Alright, I’ll admit to doing it _a lot_ , but not _every waking moment_. I’m a biologist, and I find your case fascinating. What about that is so problematic to you?”

“Nothing. Only trying to prove a point.”

The conversation ended there. Peter returned to his work on the designs, and Johona left the room once her teacup was empty. Once the room was empty save for him, Peter felt he could finally relax. He took a deep breath and told himself the facts of that morning, running them through his head in quick succession. He’d negotiated Iris’s new position. He had one more person to help him and keep his secret safe. Most importantly, he no longer had to fear Miriam’s staff discovering the reality of his condition. He trusted Iris most out of all of them. She wouldn’t share information he had told her to keep. He felt guilty, like this was an advantage of some sort that he had, but it was one that it was necessary to use. At least it would be for now. If he could help it, he would never take advantage of Iris’s obedience again. He wasn’t sure how easy a task that would be, since it seemed to be her natural inclination to let people do that very thing to her which a long time ago he had sworn to avoid at all costs.

And speaking of Iris’s inclinations, she had reacted somewhat strangely when he had invited her to feel his stomach. Johona hadn’t shivered like that, not even the first time that she examined him and saw the swelling in his abdomen. He pondered why, but couldn’t seem to find a reason. Perhaps Iris had never touched a pregnant woman before. Maybe her parents hadn’t had any children after her, or she’d never had a relative who gave birth to a cousin, nephew or niece. And Peter could have guessed, even without this evidence, that Iris had no children of her own. It didn’t strike him as unusual. She was young yet, probably quite a few solid years behind him, and still had ample time to find herself a husband.

Peter hadn’t thought so much of it before, but he still found Iris odd. There was still so much to her that he couldn’t quite understand. He wondered whether or not it would stay that way once she came to stay in the manor. He hoped it wouldn’t.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 4:30 AM and my existence is screaming.  
> But that doesn't matter much right now.  
> IRIS GOT TO TOUCH TH TUM. SO EXCITE.  
> If this chapter made you feel anything, say some words in the comments. I'm an attention whore. Also I'm very tired.  
> See you next chapter.


	10. Iris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's 2am, technically that means it's my birthday right now. So this is my present. Happy birthday, I'm a piece of garbage.  
> A year and a half ago I hacked all my hair off, and now I kind of want to grow it back. I'm around 60% gayer and still a sad, lonely little shit with no intention of ever not being a sad, lonely little shit. On the upside, I no longer hate Lana Del Rey, because her voice sounds like a languid striptease and it took me actually listening to her music to realize that.  
> Now, before I go any further, I want to credit another user, tea_and_outer_space. I take full responsibility for being awful enough to write this story in the first place, and now I'm being even more awful. I just wanted to let you know that I found your Iris Drabbles series, and at this point, basically everything you wrote has been adopted as my personal headcanons about Iris's backstory. Just like character design and personality, I know she has no canon one, so I improvised. You'll find out more about all of that later. But, for now, I just want to credit tea_and_outer_space for basically providing me with a launch pad for the rest of my Discourse (tm) about Iris.  
> At this moment, I am feeling extremely sleep deprived, and it's come to my attention that whenever I post these new chapters, 9 times out of 10 I am fighting the urge to pass the fuck out. I'm debating whether or not I should change the night I post my updates. Or if I should even have a schedule at all. Writing the remaining prose for this fic is going a lot slower than I was hoping that it would, and if things persist this way, they're gonna get kind of difficult. If anyone has anything to say on the matter, feel free to say something in the comments. Jebus knows no one uses them for anything else.  
> Whoops, there the fuck I go again, being a melodramatic little damp sock.  
> I know there really isn't any point in fishing for attention with this particular fanfiction. The niche it fits into is pretty frickin small as it is, and besides that, I haven't posted about it anywhere. The real issue is that my fanfictions are one of the few things in my life that I really enjoy and get excited about, so when other people aren't as passionate about them as I am, I turn into a sensitive, narcissistic pansy. Also, as I've mentioned in many other author's notes, I'm just a massive attention whore. I'm debating whether or not to stop my efforts with the tumblr plugs, but I'll leave the tags with you, just in case. Those would be "fic: artificial life and other unnatural things," "fic: artificial life," or something along those lines. Also blacklisted tags like "sexpg." You know, the ones that I happen to frequent whenever I can't sleep at night.  
> Thanks to volatileSoloiste, cicada_s and Feep for putting up with my shit. Now wish me a happy birthday, you godforsaken ingrates. I thought we were friends.  
> Fuck, there's a chapter I'm supposed to be posting. Can't just spend all night talking shit about myself. There is literature to be shared here.  
> CONTENT WARNING for kinkshaming, implied trauma and references to self-inflicted hand jobs.  
> Onward.

 

When Iris returned to St. Bernadette’s that evening, she wore an absent-minded smile on her face. She could barely feel it anymore, as it had been steadily holding up the corners of her lips since morning. She’d spent two whole days feeling uncontainably excited for her conversation with Mr. Walter. And it was true, it had not at all gone the way she had imagined that it would. Granted, she often melded her own ludicrous fantasies with these forecasted meetings, which gave them an element of surrealism all their own. But how the real conversation itself had gone... now, that was surrealism on an entirely new level.

That wasn’t to say that it had gone badly. That wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the whole discourse had gone far better than even Iris’s wildest fantasies could have predicted.

Her smile persisted as she strode through the carved oak doors of the church. By the time she came back, most of the candles around the altar had been put out. Only the seven-day votives were still burning, and in their light, she left her small satchel of money on a pew and set to work picking out the smoldered stubs from the candelabras and replacing them with new ones from the supply closet. Once the task was finished, she went about dusting and polishing the myriad of gilded displays with a cotton cloth, then moved on to cleaning the cobwebs and dead insects from the molding in the stained glass windows. She was in the middle of sweeping the aisles when Sister Agnes emerged from the basement. Iris took no notice, persistent smile still lingering on her face.

“And what would this expression of joy be for, little maid?” the nun pried.

Iris stopped in the middle of her task and looked up, startled. “S-Sister Agnes. You surprised me.”

“You know I always return to check for stragglers before the doors are locked for the night,” she said matter-of-factly. “We both know that God never turns his back on one in need, regardless of time, but we can’t have vagrants sneaking in and stealing from the precious little we have, either.” She strode over to where Iris stood directing dust with the broom, the hem of her inky black habit trailing along the ground. “You’ve seen no one come in since you arrived, have you?”

“Not a soul,” she answered. “Though if keeping vagrants away was really your highest priority, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been so kind as to take me in,” Iris shyly added. She hoped that Agnes would take it as a compliment. It was intended to be one, but when it came to holy people, Iris could rarely tell.

Sister Agnes’s haughty face took on a mild expression of contentment, sending a shot of relief into Iris’s veins. “Well, you gave us reason enough to trust you when you appealed to us. And it isn’t every day you come across a good Christian girl forced to live in the streets. Now, do you mind telling me what that smile is all about?”

“I-I was smiling?” It came as a surprise to Iris. Her face had been stuck that way for so long, she’d lost all awareness of her own expression. 

“Like a cat beside an empty birdcage, my child.” Agnes stood close, towering over her and looking down her nose at the maid. The image was frightening. It was times like this that made Iris hate being as small as she was. 

“W-well... I-I....I...” she sputtered, trying to find a place to begin explaining, but it was difficult when it seemed that Sister Agnes was already angry with her before a single word had left her mouth.

“Is there something you are going to need to confess to Father Coin tomorrow?”

“N-no, not at all,” Iris said quickly, backing away from the nun. “I-I only have the most wonderful news.”

“Really?” Agnes’s face warmed at the suggestion. “And what would that be?”

Iris took a deep breath and said, “The church won’t need to care for me for much longer. I’ve found a new place to live.”

“Oh, splendid.” Sister Agnes proclaimed, though it hardly seemed genuine. “It seems God has smiled upon you in his providence. Pray tell, how did this come about?”

“Well, you know that I work with Miriam’s company. And I keep house in a number of clients’ homes. One of them is Mr. Walter’s. Peter Walter, the scientist. I-I’m sure I’ve spoken about him before.”

Sister Agnes nodded expectantly. “Yes, many times.”

“Well, he managed to arrange a deal with Miriam, and he’ll be taking me on as a resident maid in just a few days’ time!” Iris could hardly contain her excitement. She clutched the broom handle to her chest and grinned so widely that her cheeks hurt. “Think of it, Sister Agnes. I’ll finally be out of your hair, and there will be storage space in the belltower again, and the church’s resources can be...” She was bubbling over with more to share, but her words were halted by the severe expression on Sister Agnes’s face. “Sister Agnes?” she timidly asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing,” the maid stoically replied. “This news is quite fair. It truly is. And I am happy for you. Only...” She stopped mid-sentence to scoff. “This arrangement might have been less dubious if Mr. Walter had offered you a marriage proposal instead.”

“E-excuse me?” Iris froze, and whatever was left of her reverie faded away. 

“I’m only saying that this new arrangement is... To put it civilly, it raises some suspicions. About you.” She glared pointedly at the maid. “And about him as well.”

“Pardon me, S-Sister Agnes, but what exactly are you implying?”

“Iris,” the nun said, once again looming over her like a grim reaper. “You lived in Mississippi once, did you not? And you have some knowledge of history?”

Iris tried to push the thoughts out of her head, but they came flooding in anyway, crashing about her skull and drowning her sense of reason. She’d considered it before. She had so many times that it was no use to deny it. She’d kept her daydreams in her head, hadn’t let a single thing slip, and she had thought her feelings were harmless, but with Sister Agnes hanging over her head like this, suddenly she felt filthy and filled with shame.

“B-but I... I wouldn’t!” she stammered. “H-he wouldn’t... he would never...” And she knew for sure that he wouldn’t. But the reason why was something that she could not share with anyone, least of all Sister Agnes. Her employer had sworn her to secrecy. And even if he hadn’t, she still could never bring herself to betray him. Peter Walter had to be protected.

“Do not be so quick to assume so, child,” Agnes warned. “You know that Mr. Walter is not a man of God. Most scientists are not, and with a history like his, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were keeping a dark secret or two.”

“D-do you mean the Cavalcadium?”

“Do not mention the name of that sinful hall in the house of the lord,” she commanded. “There is a reason that God swept it from the face of the Earth. Peter Walter is a man of science, Iris. Not of God. And without God, that is all he is: a man. I am sure you understand what that means.”

Iris wanted to tell her exactly how wrong she was, but the words were stuck deep in her lungs, pinned down by a much larger weight of fear. “B-but... I’m only his maid, Sister Agnes. He has no interest in me.”

“If only that case were the same for you.”

Iris’s hands clutched the broom harder than ever, so much that the wood threatened to splinter. “S-sister Agnes...”

“Don’t try and lie to me, child. God knows everything.” 

“O-of course,” Iris submissively murmured. Her cheeks burned, and she averted her eyes, unable to bear Sister Agnes’s cold, unwavering stare any longer.

“Do not give in to sinful fantasies, ” the nun continued. “A man of his standing and potential would not seek to make a wife of a girl like yourself. Should he stain your sanctity, both your souls shall be marked for eternal damnation.”

“I-I won’t, Sister Agnes. I promise.”

“Good. I will pray that God sees to it you are successful in your ventures.” Finally, she put a bit of distance between herself and Iris. “When will your employer be expecting you?”

“I-I told him I would bring my belongings in three days.”

“Three days it is, then. Be sure to remove everything that belongs to you from the belltower. And  _ only _ what belongs to you. I will personally make sure that nothing you abscond with is church property.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Sister Agnes.”

“I’ll request that Father Coin send you off with a pew bible for remembrance. We have a few in storage to spare, and I can’t have you forgetting your prayers every night.”

“Thank you, Sister Agnes.”

“I am only doing what is in your best interests, child,” she said definitively. With that, she turned and started for the door. “I shall see you tomorrow morning.”

“Goodnight, Sister Agnes.”

Then the church was quiet, save for muffled footsteps and the squeaking of heavy iron hinges swinging open. At the last moment, Sister Agnes paused and turned back to Iris in the doorway. “Remember, Iris. You best watch your desires, else I’ll tell Father Coin.”

Iris swallowed convulsively at the suggestion. Words seemed out of her grasp, so she nodded instead. That seemed enough for Sister Agnes, and she let the door swing shut in her wake. A second later, Iris heard its many latches being turned into place. Immediately, she took up her sweeping again, finishing as quickly as she could so she could head up into her belltower for the night.

The belltower wasn’t necessarily  _ hers _ , but sometimes she liked to pretend it was. Once the broom was back in its cupboard, as she did every night, Iris lit a smoldered votive candle and started up the stairs. It was one flight to the choir loft, another to the attic, a narrow spiral up to the steeple at the front of the building, and at the very end, there was a ladder that led through a hole in the ceiling. Iris pulled herself up through the opening, shifted a few plywood crates aside, and found her place in the small room.

It wasn’t much. A rope hung from the unreasonably-high ceiling, which Iris pulled on Sunday mornings at 10 sharp to sound the great bell overhead and call the surrounding square to mass. The space was filled with boxes for the most part, since the tower had been used for storage space before she had come in and invaded it. A spare standing mirror was perched in the middle, and a mattress made up with off-white linens was laid out on the floor in one corner, which over the years had softened to her sleeping patterns. Beside this was an arrangement of sideways crates that Iris had set up in a parody of shelves to hold her spare clothing. A few bags littered the floor around it, most of them empty, and she added her traveling satchel to the fray. She kicked her shoes off beside it, set the votive on the floor, spun around once in her stocking feet, and fell backwards onto the mattress. 

Iris sighed wistfully as she landed with a soft  _ thump _ on the covers. Once again, her thoughts had turned to her conversation with Mr. Walter that morning. How had it come to this? She wondered. It was a mystery indeed, what strings the universe had pulled to bring her to this point.

She’d imagined the conversation going in a wholly different direction from what it had been, and as shameful as it was to admit, Sister Agnes’s accusations hadn’t been far from the truth. But Iris was sure that the straitlaced old nun couldn’t have possibly known the full extent of her fantasies. No one could have, not with all the efforts she’d made to keep her sickly sweet wishes all to herself.

She had made up a thousand different visions of Mr. Walter in her head, twice as many conversations, and infinitely more situations that had never happened, or that she wished she could go back and change. That morning, she had dreamed of a heartfelt confession in the quiet confines of his study. She wished for him to kneel before her, and a ring to be suddenly produced from his pocket. She saw her sudden transformation into an irresistible Aphrodite who would win him over with a flick of her hand. And then... then her visions of him taking her in his arms, laying her back on his desk or throwing her up against a wall, tearing her skirts away and...

Iris sat up and pushed the daydreams to the back of her mind where they belonged. She felt she had sinned enough for one day. Even if she wasn’t as religious as the clergy might like to believe, at times they could make her feel like she needed to spend a day locked in a confessional box. It bothered her somewhat, how easy it was for them to make her feel so guilty. It was especially irksome that Father Coin and some of the Sisters called her “child,” even though they had known since her arrival that, by then, she was nearly 28 years old.  Her attention back in the belltower, Iris shed the apron and simple black dress of her maid’s uniform, folded them up and slid them into one of the lower crate-shelves. 

Her mind wandered again as she began pulling at the strings of her corset. It was true, the day’s meeting had gone nothing like the way she had imagined it would, but the Iris couldn’t have asked for a better turn of events, twisted as it was. She still couldn’t quite understand what he and Johona had told her. Biologically, it didn’t make sense, and his explanations for it were flimsy at best. And the...  _ inciting incident _ , as she decided to call it, had definitely thrown her for a loop, as if the rest hadn’t been enough. Still, he’d sworn that it was a mistake. He wouldn’t lie to her, not about something so serious. She wasn’t sure she could see him the same way, though the more she thought about it, the less of an effect it had on the way she felt about him. 

Even if he was that much more of a mad scientist than she had previously known, there was still more she had to look forward to than what she had to fear. She was moving out of the church. She would get to stay in the same home as Mr. Walter. And the news he had given her was exciting beyond comprehension. Nothing she could think of would snuff her elation. 

Peter was going to have a baby. Sweet, intelligent, lonely Peter, having a baby. So wonderful for him!

Iris’s corset came loose from her ribs, and she drew in a deep breath as the thick, heavy garment fell away from her chest. She folded it carefully and set it on top of another of her uniforms. She hated wearing it, if she were to be more straightforward with herself. Most girls, she knew, grew up wearing them, and she’d only been jamming herself into one for a little over a year. She almost regretted spending the money she’d scraped together to purchase it. The thing was dreadfully uncomfortable, and wearing it in the summer made her feel faint from the heat. She didn’t even think it did very much to change her figure, since she could only tie its laces so tight on her own. But that was the proper thing to do. If she wanted to get anywhere in life, she would have to wear it every day. A girl like her had to do all she could to build herself a respectable image.

With the corset gone, Iris felt she could finally move again. She shrugged off the rest of her clothes, stuffed them into the low shelf with her uniform and slipped on a plain cotton shift to wear through the night. Finally comfortable, she laid down on her bed and stared at the bell rope as it swung lazily on the ceiling.

Peter was going to have a baby. It really was a miracle for something like that to happen to him, she thought. In all the time that she had known him, he had lived alone in that huge, crumbling mansion. He’d had friends once, she knew, but she didn’t know whether or not he saw them anymore. Surely, he had to be miserable, living like that. Having someone else in his life was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. 

But if the news was so good, then how come he didn’t appear to be just as happy about it as she was? Something hadn’t felt right about it all. He had seemed so nervous when he spoke. 

Iris rolled over onto her side and curled up on top of the covers. Of course he wouldn’t feel as delighted as she did. He’d never asked for this to happen to him. He hadn’t been planning on it. And all those things that he’d said... They echoed in Iris’s head as she thought.  _ We couldn’t put a stop to it...  I’m sure there’s a better home for it than mine... _

Iris knew that, more than anything else, Peter was frightened. He had every right to be. He hadn’t been able to explain what was happening, and as little as Iris understood, he probably didn’t know very much more than she did. What his body was doing was out of his control, and it was totally beyond the natural limitations of his sex. And Iris was sure that he wasn’t lying. She’d seen him fall ill over and over for weeks, and somehow manage to keep a healthy weight. And what she’d felt under his vest... there was no way it could have been anything else. She didn’t doubt for a second that everything he and Johona had told her was true.

As she lay there in the belltower and gazed at the reflection of her feet in the standing mirror, Iris promised herself that she would do all she could to help him. Peter Walter needed her. He had asked her personally. She’d be damned if she even came close to failing him. She would protect him and keep his secret safe, care for him no matter what she found out about him or how much he changed. It was her solemnly sworn responsibility as his maid. 

There hadn’t been any real oath that she made to bind herself into such an agreement, but she had taken it upon herself to weigh their arrangement so heavily. Besides, if she did well in the position she was granted, he might allow her to stay on with him, even after his life and the child’s were separated. He hadn’t definitively said that he would keep it, but if he chose to, he might allow her to help him care for it. Nothing would make her happier than to be able to see his child grow up and do her part in raising it. If she was lucky, maybe he would promote her to being a nanny and allow her to watch over the child while he worked. That would be lovely on its own. And maybe, if she worked hard enough and gave it everything she had, he would consider more. If fate was on her side, he might even be willing to...

Iris sat up and roughly shook the notion from her head, scattering her curls out in all directions.  _ No _ , she scolded herself.  _ Don’t you dare start thinking that way _ .

It wasn’t worth the time and energy to keep dwelling on foolish daydreams the way she always did. Mr. Walter was her employer. Single, maybe, but not available. Not to her, anyway. She had nothing to offer him but her hands to work with. And that might have been enough, if he ever came to think of her the way that Sister Agnes seemed to believe he did. Even that would have been sufficient for Iris. But there was nothing there. Surely she had no place in his heart. She raised her head to try and take another deep breath and caught sight of herself in the mirror. And there was yet another thing. All the more reason for him to be keeping his distance.

Iris stood up from the mattress and took the few steps that brought her to stand before the mirror. She looked herself over, not entirely sure what to make of everything she saw. She looked just like a little church mouse, draped in her shift and surrounded by dusty crates. Her hair was unimpressive, wild with its illogically tight curls, even chopped to her shoulders as it was. Her skin was a disappointment as well. While some women of her race had been gifted with warm, bronzed tones, polished by the sun, she had been left ashen by her line of work scurrying from house to house. Thick thighs, scars and bruises, short nails, callused hands, pouted lips and a face untouched by any kind of cosmetic... No, there was nothing for him to want from her, not even at a glance. And even if there was, he didn’t know about what she had hidden under her shift.

She ran a hand across her torso, tracing along where she knew scar tissue formed jagged lines of darkened, crumpled flesh. They had driven away enough men in their time. Even if he were low enough to pursue her casually, he would turn away as soon as he saw them. She had seen it happen before, and she didn’t doubt that it would happen if Mr. Walter ever saw her for the travesty that she really was. 

Her head sufficiently distanced from the clouds, Iris stepped away from the mirror and laid herself back down on the mattress, still on top of the linens. The last thing she needed at the moment was to be underneath them. If there was anything that she really disliked about the belltower was the fact that it never seemed able to keep a consistent temperature. It had been absolutely freezing until March, tolerable for about two months, and then promptly became an oven as soon as the summer began to take hold of California. She was glad that she would be able to leave it soon. Wherever she ended up staying in Mr. Walter’s home, it would surely be more comfortable than it was here.

It was an odd question that he had asked her that morning, she thought. He wanted to know which room she would prefer to sleep in. No one had ever bothered asking her that before. Either it wasn’t necessary, since she wouldn’t have a room of her own, or it wasn’t a matter of choice and she was placed wherever she would fit. It was the first time the decision was left up to her. He’d let her stall her answer, but she still had only three days to make her choice.

She would have to come up with something quickly. It wouldn’t do to tell him that the room she wanted to sleep in was his.

* * *

Precisely three days after the agreement was made, Miriam’s company car appeared in front of the manor and no one but Iris stepped out. 

Peter had been waiting at the window in the foyer since breakfast, and Johona had willingly taken another day from work to keep up appearances. She stayed beside him and watched the road in front of the house with just as much vigilance. There wouldn’t be much for Iris to do when she came in. Miriam’s staff had their last round of routine cleaning the day before. Peter speculated that there would be enough work to do getting Iris situated. He didn’t want to put too much pressure on her. She would have a lot to contend with in the near future, and if he could give her a rest for even a short time, she would be far better off.

When the car appeared in the distance on the dusty road that cut through the scrub-grass fields, just beyond of the sparse trees that surrounded the property, Peter turned to Johona. “How do I look?” he asked.

His friend cast him a quick sideways glance. It was the first day he’d spent wearing an altered garment for every piece of clothing he had on him. The garments were all slightly oversized, just enough to hide his misshapen body.  “Perfectly fine,” she replied. “You can barely tell.”

“You’re sure?” he pressed, looking down at himself. If he stared, he thought that he could make out a faint bump in the fabric over his stomach. Admittedly, he’d been becoming increasingly insecure about it. He’d spent half an hour pep-talking himself into speaking to Miriam the day before, and even after it was over, he feared that she’d noticed something. Iris had, after all, and Miriam was only a little less observant than she was on such matters. Being forced to see anyone at all made Peter want to hide in a closet somewhere and never come out. 

“They won’t suspect anything. But they will, if you keep looking at it like that.” Johona patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. It’ll only be a few minutes. Welcome Iris, thank Miriam, and that’ll be the end of it.”

He looked back at the window, sighed and nodded. “I can do a few minutes.”

“That’s the spirit, Walter.”

They strode through the front door together and started down the front walk. Miriam’s car sat idling at the end. A rear door opened and Iris emerged, dressed in a plain off-white blouse and dove grey skirt. She rounded the side of the car and opened the trunk to retrieve her belongings. There wasn’t very much. One mediocre-sized canvas bag. Then another. Then a small wooden trunk. And that was it.

Remembering his rationalization for taking Iris in, he stopped in his path a few feet from the car while Johona continued past him to help Iris gather her things. The driver’s side door opened, and Miriam stepped out. A matronly smile appeared on her face when she caught Peter’s gaze. “Good morning to ye, Master Walter.”

“I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to do this,” he enthused, returning her cheerful expression. He still had to keep up the tired appearance of a sick man, but he had to let Miram know of his appreciation.

“It’s a simple request, Master Walter,” the head maid replied. “And what right would I have to deny ye what ye need?”

“You have a point, but you still should know how much this means to me. It’s a huge relief, knowing we can keep this illness contained. I’m sure that Johona will have a vaccine crafted in no time.”

“Best of luck to her in that.” Miriam nodded towards the back of the car, where Iris was arranging her belongings to carry them all at once, surrendering quickly when Johona put her hands in the way in an attempt to help. “Ye chose yourself a good worker. She won’t disappoint ye, that’s for sure.”

“I never thought she would.” The trunk slammed shut, and Peter turned to where Iris and Johona stood. “All set?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Walter!” Iris cheerily replied. Johona started back toward the manor, leading Iris along with her.

The short exchange over, Peter looked back to Miriam. “I hope I’ll see you again.”

“If this all works out, then ye just might,” the head maid replied. “‘Till then, remember that I’m wishin’ ye well. All three of ye.”

“I won’t forget.”

With that, Miriam returned to the driver’s seat. The door shut and the car puttered away from the front walk, kicking up a thin cloud of dust in its wake. Peter spared no time in turning back and heading toward the house. As heartwarming as the goodbye was, it was a comfort to no longer be haunted by prying eyes. It made him feel like a spoiled ingrate, finding so much relief in Miriam’s absence. Peter pushed the guilt aside and, as he did with most things he felt, blamed it on the baby. The damned thing just wouldn’t let him rest for a moment of his life.

Iris had set her bags down at the foot of the stairs and was waiting patiently for instructions when Peter returned indoors. “Well,” he began, offering her a warm smile. “How are you liking your new home?”

“I-I’ve been here so many times, it hardly feels new,” Iris shyly replied.

“I suppose that’s for the best, then. You won’t have to learn your way around. This place can feel like a maze to those who don’t know it very well.” Peter approached the staircase and reached for one of Iris’s bags. Before he had even come close to touching the handle, Iris’s hand had shot out and snatched it up.

“Y-you don’t need to do that, M-Mr. Walter,” she stuttered. “I-I can carry them myself.”

“Oh, please. It’s nothing. And believe me, a staircase is the worst place to drop something,” he dismissively replied. “Other than a cliffside, maybe, but that’s a mistake I haven’t made yet.

“B-but are you sure that you should be carrying things? I mean, in your condition?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” Iris acquiesced. Then she crouched down and lifted the small trunk from the floor. “Here. This one’s the lightest.”

Peter almost protested, but he figured that with Iris, there would be no point in doing so. He settled for holding the box and led the way to the second floor. “Have you chosen your room yet?”

“I’ve been thinking a while, and I decided I liked the one at the corridor’s end the best. The one that looks over the fields behind the house.”

“That one?” he asked. He tried to infer what had possessed her to choose it. “It’ll be the most quiet there, that’s for sure.”

“I have gotten used to a lot of peace and quiet, where I used to live.”

Peter thought he heard her giggle a little as she spoke, and he glanced over his shoulder to see her face, which was drawn up in a timid smile. “And where was it that you used to live?”

“Where I used to live?” In a second, the smile was gone. “Oh, it was... nowhere special. Nowhere interesting.”

“Well, regardless of how  _ interesting _ it was, I am  _ interested _ . I need to know what my hospitality has to compete with.” He glanced back and smirked rakishly at Iris, making her smile surface again.

“I was...” She hesitated, as if she needed to think about her answer. “I... lived on the... um, the top floor of a building. It was kind of a tower, actually.”

“A tower? I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I start calling you Rapunzel, then,” Peter joked as they reached the door at the very end of the hall. 

Iris giggled. “I-I’m the furthest thing from a princess, Mr. Walter.”

“You do have a point, there.” He shrugged. “I always thought royal titles were a bit pretentious, anyways.” Balancing Iris’s trunk on his hip, he opened the door and stepped into the room, then waved his hand out before him in a showcasing gesture. “Welcome to your new home.”

Iris smiled at him as she entered. The room itself was fairly small, in comparison to some of the others in the house. But what it lacked in size, it made up for in personality. The walls were papered with a delicate lilac pattern, and a wide bay window took up the one furthest from the door, set with a worn but still-plush velveteen window seat. A simple oak-frame bed with a bare mattress was pushed into a corner, and two dressers of the same design framed the opposite sides of the room.

Peter set down the trunk on top of one of the dressers. “I’m sure it’ll be a more comfortable once you’ve lived in it a little,” he assured Iris. “First thing you’ll need would be bedsheets. You can sort your clothes either in the dressers or the closest, depending on your preference. It’s a good thing you and the other girls kept this house so clean, otherwise this place would probably be rotting around you.”

As he talked, the maid had moved on into the room without him. He watched her set her bags down at the foot of the bed and sit down on the mattress. She looked all around the space that surrounded her, her eyes wide with wonder like those of a curious child. Her gaze wandered across the lilac wallpaper, to the window, and finally back to Peter. “It’s perfect,” she said.

“You did choose your favorite one,” he replied. He returned to the door and glanced out into the hallway. “Now, about those linens...”

In a flash, Iris had stood up from the bed and started for the door. “I’ll do it, Mr. Walter. I know where they are.”

Peter halted her before she stepped out of the room. “Are you sure? I know I don’t keep sheets on most of the beds that don’t get used, and you might not know which ones are right.”

“I-I’m sure I can figure it out,” Iris assured him. “I don’t want to delay you any longer. I’m sure you have important work to do.”

“Alright,” he conceded. “I only advise that you wash them before you put them on. There’s no telling how long they’ve been sitting in a closest. The last thing I’d want is for you to have to sleep on sheets full of splinters.”

“I will, Mr. Walter.”

He stepped back from the door, letting Iris walk past him into the hallway. As she did, she paused. She turned to him, and for a moment Peter thought that she looked almost anxious. “M-Mr. Walter?” 

“Yes?” 

Her gaze met with his, and they held for an excruciating moment, neither one of them saying a single word. Then her eyes flicked quickly down before bouncing back to settle on his face again. It happened once more, she sighed, pursed her lips and quickly turned around to scurry off down the hallway. Peter watched her go, and when she disappeared around the corner, he found himself pondering about her again. 

He knew what she’d been looking at. It was no surprise to him anymore. She knew what was there, seen it up close, even touched it. Yet he still seemed to make her nervous. He hoped it wouldn’t stay that way. It would be an awkward for the both of them if they continued to live with one constantly making the other uncomfortable. They had managed to get across a bit of banter in the hallway. She’d thought his terrible jokes were funny. That had to be a start.

Peter looked impulsively back down at his stomach. Johona was right when she had said that it was well-hidden today. But even if it took a knowing and perceptive eye to notice the irregularity, he still felt it. He was accustomed to wearing a vest at almost all times, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. Before long, having something fit him so snugly would become inconvenient, not to mention uncomfortable and restrictive. He made a note to tell Johona not to alter the vests anymore. Once he outgrew them, he could go on living without them. That issue was an easy one to fix. As for Iris...

He wasn’t really sure what to do. He rarely was, when it came to her. Their relations were something that only time could smooth over.

* * *

“One hundred and sixty-two point six pounds. And that’s along with... another inch to your waist. I’d say your progress is going swimmingly.”

Peter wished that Johona wouldn’t read his measurements out loud. Even with the knowledge of what was happening to him, he still felt embarrassed to know how much weight he was putting on in the process. His whole biological makeup seemed to be going backwards, and the feeling it left him with was awful. The insecurity was doubled, now that Iris had been invited to the lab to participate in his 14-week check-up with Johona. 

It would make her more comfortable with what was happening, his friend has said said. It would help her to understand. It would convince her, just in case she didn’t believe them already. It was a good idea. No harm in it at all, she’d said.  _ A load of malarkey _ , Peter thought to himself. 

He was laid out on the last empty table in the lab, as was their usual practice. He felt extraordinarily exposed like that, sprawled and helpless like one of his unfinished automatons. At least Johona had let him keep his shirt on, for the most part. It was still unbuttoned up to his chest, and he felt he looked even stupider than he might have if he had simply taken off his shirt altogether. He only didn’t want to make the examination any more awkward for Iris than it already was.

The maid stood at her employer’s side, her hands resting beside his arm on the edge of the table, watching Johona with great interest as she went through the routine motions of her weekly examination. She’d been surprised to be allowed into the lab so soon, in spite of the fact that she and Miriam were the only ones who had been allowed to clean it in the past. She had kept to herself for the most part, as if afraid to touch anything, and she’d started a little when Johona requested that Peter unbutton his shirt. Other than those small dilemmas, she seemed to be holding up fairly well.

The examination was almost finished. As was custom, Johona took her Pinard stethoscope from her bag. Iris seemed momentarily confused, and she looked to Peter with a concerned expression. “It’s a stethoscope. To listen for its heart,” he told her, and she nodded wordlessly, though he couldn’t be sure whether she really understood or not.

Johona set the earpieces in her ears and pressed the metal bell against her friend’s abdomen, which seemed especially misshapen without anything to cover it up. Iris had stared at it when the nurse had first pushed his shirt aside, and Peter didn’t blame her. He had been surprised by it too, when he had first noticed it. Now he laid still and stared up at the ceiling as he felt Johona move the stethoscope from place to place on his skin and calmly waited for her to give her usual statement. “There it is!” she excitedly announced.

Peter strained his neck to look at her and saw a smile on her face. “Still there?” he asked.

“Yes, and going just as strong as ever.” She glanced up at Iris, who had leaned in a little closer to watch. “You want to listen?”

The maid’s eyes widened, and she let out a little gasp of surprise. “L-listen to the heart, you mean?”

“And some other things, maybe, but the heart is the loudest.” Johona held the stethoscope bell in place and took out the earpieces to offer them to Iris. “What do you say? Interested?”

“I-I... oh, of course. I-I’d be delighted.” She came delicately took the earpieces from Johona and set them in place. Peter felt Jo friend press the bell into him a little more, and he watched as Iris’s face took on a look of absolute awe. He saw her eyes light up and heard a soft exhale of amazement. She looked down at his belly, seeming perplexed, then turned to Johona. “It’s so fast.”

“Because it’s still very small,” she explained. “That’s the way things generally are. The smaller the organism, the faster its heart beats. It’ll slow down eventually, once the baby grows a bit more.”

Iris hummed her acknowledgement, then let her gaze fall back to Peter. It was faint, but he thought he saw the corners of her mouth turn a little ways upward. Her eyes seemed to have gone a little hazy, and there was a glow about her in that moment that Peter couldn’t quite place. There was something about the way she was looking at him. It was almost- dare he even say it-  _ affectionate _ .

Almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone. Iris blinked, and her eyes had refocused. She took the stethoscope from her ears and handed it back to Johona. “Th-thank you. That was... enlightening.”

His friend laughed. “I’d say. When I first heard it, I probably felt the same way that you do right now.”

Peter was almost completely sure that she was wrong, but he didn’t mention it. Johona hadn’t seen the look on Iris’s face, and he wasn’t sure that what he’d seen was something to be shared.

“Right. Now that’s all established,” his friend went on, packing up her equipment and gathering her notes. “It seems like the child is healthy enough, and growing at a normal rate. Now, there are a few things I should probably warn you about before we can call this appointment finished. How’s your morning sickness been lately?”

Peter shrugged. “I haven’t been keeping very good track. Besides, you see me every day.”

“I know, but you’re usually still asleep when I leave for work in the morning,  _ which is when _ , if you recall, your symptoms are usually at their worst,” she chided. “And I’ve come to find you a little notorious for not telling me when things are wrong.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. Um... I can’t say definitively, but I think it’s a little milder, at least. I’ve gone a few days at a time without throwing up, so that must mean something.”

“It does, actually. That’s how these things usually go. The nausea is always at its worst in the first three months, and then starts to calm down afterwards. But I should tell you that it’s prone to resurgence.”

‘Resurgence?”

“Meaning it could come back at any intensity, at any time,” she elaborated. “You’d best be on your guard for it.”

“I should think so,” Peter replied with a shudder. That was a bit of a disappointment. He’d been looking forward to being able to wake up and not immediately want to vomit.

“It’s only a part of everything up ahead, though. There’s more. For instance, you might start to feel movement in the next few weeks.”

“Movement?”

“Yes. Once the child is strong enough, you’ll be able to feel when it moves. Now, that part varies a lot from person to person. With a lot of women I’ve worked with, they didn’t begin to feel anything until about 20 weeks, but there were some who could perceive movement even as early as the stage you’re in.”

Peter shivered a little at the suggestion. Perceiving movement. That was going to be strange. He was having a hard enough time coming to terms with the fact that he had a living thing growing in his body at all. At times he’d thought he could sense it, even before he had noticed his belly starting to distend. Feeling it move inside of him... now, that would be unsettling on an entirely new level.

While he remained quiet, Iris went ahead and asked her own questions. “What is that going to feel like?”

“It’s a bit hard to describe, from what I’ve been told,” Johona explained. “Some people have said that at the beginning, it barely feels like anything. It’s kind of a fluttering, like a butterfly flapping its wings. Or a nervous twitch, as some have said. It becomes more pronounced later on, but that’s how it’ll start.”

Iris nodded, seeming to hang onto her every word. She glanced back at Peter, as if to check whether or not he was taking notes as well, and suddenly a guilty look leached into her eyes. He had a faint idea why, but it wasn’t anything that he felt she should be sorry for. She’d been far more interested in knowing about his condition than he was, even though it was  _ his _ body that was being examined. He didn’t blame her. For most people, having a child was a celebrated occasion. She probably thought the same way, with as little as he’d told her about the circumstances. He hoped he’d never have to tell her the full extent of his feelings. She would never be able to look at him the same way if he did, and that was  _ after _ she had somehow dealt with knowing how this whole disaster had come into being in the first place.

Breaking his gaze with Iris, he looked to Johona and asked, “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Nothing, for now,” she replied, stowing her equipment and shutting her medical kit. “I’ll keep letting you know what’s coming as you move along, but if I were to go through every single stage you’ll see, we’d probably be here all night. Not to mention the fact that you’d be terrified.”

“Alright,” Peter said, suppressing a cringe. “Can I fix my shirt now?”

“Go ahead.”

He didn’t waste a second in sitting up, buttoning his shirt and tucking it back into his pants. Being covered up made him feel infinitely better. He glanced at Iris, to see if there was any change in her composure. She seemed collected, despite the brief guilty spell he’d seen in her eyes, and surprisingly unaffected by his exposure. It occurred to him that this might not have been the first time she had seen so much of a man’s skin.

“It seems like you’re doing well, Mr. Walter,” she said serenely with a little smile on her face.

“I suppose I am, by Johona’s standards.” Shrugging his vest back on, he swung his legs over the side of the slab and stood up. He kept his eyes down and focused on fastening the buttons. He was glad the examination was over with. He wasn’t quite sure what about them bothered him so much. It was probably the glaring reminder of what he’d done that they always seemed to carry with them.

“I-is something wrong, sir?” Iris timidly asked the back of his head.

“No,” he said, nonchalant. “Nothing of import, anyway.” His clothing back in order, he turned around to glance at the staircase, where Johona was already climbing up to the ground floor. “Hey, Jo, mind telling us what time it is?”

“One second,” she said before disappearing from sight. Soon after, she shouted “Six thirty-five!” down the stairs.

“Probably a good time to get dinner started,” he mused. He looked back at Iris. “What do you say?”

The maid nodded, agreeing with him as she always did. She remained a little ways behind him as they ascended the stairs. She’d been staying at the manor for only a few days, and surely she must have found his habits odd. She had cooked alone for the first two days, stopping only when Johona arrived home from work a few minutes early on the third and joined her in the middle of dinner preparations. From then on, that responsibility had rotated between the three of them, often on more than one at once. Iris had probably never known a man who cooked for himself. 

_ Well _ , he thought,  _ that’s got to be the least of my irregularities she’ll have to deal with. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There. That's an update.  
> I hope you enjoyed it. It took me literally almost an entire day, because I gave up trying to finish it at around 3am last night and couldn't pick it back up until now. So the update's a day late. Maybe I should give up on trying to keep Friday as my weekly date for a new chapter.  
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and especially thanks to tea_and_outer_space for my ripped-off ideas.  
> My friends are here for a round of Betrayal at House on the Hill. Time to play some sexy RPGs.  
> See you next chapter.


	11. Signs Of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look at that, an extra week gone without a chapter and here I am, back at posting after midnight on a Friday. I didn't update last week basically because I just didn't feel up to it and was pretty sure that no one would care much whether or not I posted the new chapter on schedule anyway.  
> I am not nice.  
> Aside from that, I'm gonna spoil a couple of things about this impending chapter. It's a bit longer than the others, and some really important stuff happens. Last weekend just didn't feel like a good time to post it. So here I am, caffeinated at 1:24 am and posting it now.  
> Thanks to cicada_s, volatileSoloiste, Feep and a few others who I bothered with this godforsaken story. NOT thanks to my roommate OR my disconnected fandom friend, NEITHER of whom I can casually tag on AO3, who both promised to read this story 7 months ago when it was still in its prototype phase and still have not even finished the first chapter. Goddammit, guys, get your acts together.  
> Please post about this on tumblr if you're feeling it (*it* being the penchant to discourse on really weird and uncalled-for fanfiction) (I guess that's what *it* is.) Just tag it "fic: artificial life" or "fic: alaout" or something else like that. And remember to use those blacklisted tags!! (ie: sexpg) it might be a sorta bad thing if I had the band going after me for fucking around with their characters like this.  
> Okay, party time is over. I've got to get on with this chapter. Trigger warnings for ghosts, vomiting, night terrors, vivid descriptions of increasingly weird shit, and other increasingly weird shit.

 

It was a beautiful day. The grass was surprisingly soft for having grown in an arid California summer. It smelled fresh and cool crushed under a flannel picnic blanket. Sunlight streamed through the verdant leaves of an overhanging tree and dappled the ground at its roots. The sky above was the clearest blue that there ever was, not a single cloud to be seen. Music drifted delicately in the warm, breezy air, played out by the skillful hands of three crafted automatons that stood a small distance away.

Delilah was sprawled out on the blanket, gazing dreamily up at the sky, endless waves of hair scattered about her head like a sunburst of caramel brown. Her eyelashes fluttered as she squinted against the light, and eventually they fell closed. She tilted her head onto its side and reached her hand up to rest its back against Peter’s thigh. He offered her his own, and their palms pressed together, fingers tangled warm and clumsy in between.

“This is perfect,” she murmured contentedly. “More than I could have ever asked for.”

Peter smiled at her, feeling a bit drowsy from the sun and the delirium she stirred up in his head. “The pleasure was all mine,” he said. “I put everything I could into building it.”

“Well, whatever it is you did, it must have worked.” With a smooth, languid movement, Delilah sat up and rolled onto her hip to face him, her hair swaying with her. She gazed into his eyes and a smile slowly materialized on her face. Her hand came to rest on top of his, and he felt his heart spasm wildly at her touch. “I love it,” she softly declared. “I love everything about it.”

Peter was frozen for a moment, becoming deathly still as Delilah leaned gradually closer to him. They were mere inches apart, her breath brushing against his skin like the the soft summer wind. He swallowed nervously, his heart beating at an unprecedented pace in his chest. Gathering his courage, he straightened himself up and took the chemist’s fair, graceful hand in both of his own.

“Delilah,” he nervously began. “There’s... there’s something I need to ask you.”

The meadow fell totally silent. In that moment, the breeze had stilled, and even the automatons had ceased to function. Delilah stared at him, her foggy blue eyes wide and unblinking, every trace of her enraptured smile gone from her face.

“How strange,” she said. “I have something to ask you, too.”

The stillness was unsettling, but Peter refused to be discouraged. “What is it?” he inquired, suppressing the waver in his voice.

Delilah froze, and a distant whispering sound pulled his gaze toward the sky. The endless blue void had changed. Before his eyes, it began to warp, shades and tones separating from one another to form convulsing patterns that turned the sky into a live, roiling sea. He felt Delilah’s fingers tighten around his, and he turned back to see that her wide, lively eyes had gone blank and glassy. Her cheeks glistened with paths of tears that had streaked down her face. She pulled her hand from his grasp and placed it on his tense, caved-in stomach.

“Am I the mother?”

The sky seemed to disintegrate above them. Thick, viscous streams of fluorescent teal began to spill from Delilah’s dead, unblinking eyes. Black sludge poured from her lips as she spoke, dripping down her chin and splattering all over Peter’s clothes and the blanket beneath them. This thing wasn’t Delilah. It was something else, a horrid apparition that had taken her appearance. He wanted desperately to pull away, but he seemed unable to move. Like she was holding him where he stood. Like she _wouldn’t let him go_.

“Answer me, Peter,” the vision commanded, choking out the words against the inky black fluid.

“ _Am I the mother?_ ”

* * *

Peter awoke with a jolt.

He lay still for a second, his eyes blinking open to be met with near-total darkness. His heart hammered relentlessly at his sternum. His breath was fast and labored as if he’d just sprinted his way out of the clutches of death, and his whole body was covered in a sweat that wasn’t quite cold.

With a single, frustrated motion, he shoved the edge of the bedcovers away from himself, detaching them from his damp, burning skin. He wriggled his way out from underneath, huffing from the effort, and sat up. He put a hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath and concentrate until his pulse slowed a bit more. In the dimness of some ungodly hour of night, his eyes found the sliver of starlight that seeped into the room through the narrow slit between the curtains that covered the tall French windows. He stared at it until he felt he’d come to his senses.

Delilah. He’d seen her. She had been there, speaking to him, and all of a sudden she had changed and it wasn’t her anymore. It must have been a dream. He couldn’t have really been seeing her... unless there was more to this than he was considering. Unless all of his life had been a dream up to this point, and this was just the sudden, unexpected end of an extraordinarily long nightmare. Maybe Delilah wasn’t really dead, and the Cavalcadium was still there, Thaddeus was sane, and...

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Peter’s hands went directly to his abdomen, a small scrap of hope glimmering in his head. But what he felt wasn’t his own body, returned to normal, but the now-familiar rounded shape of his belly. He sank back against the pillows and sighed, letting his hands slide away from himself and fall to the mattress.

Just a dream. It was all just a dream.

Peter blinked slowly and stared out into the darkness, waiting for the room to come into focus before he finally gave up and tried to lay back down. He had to get back to sleeping. It would be easier without the hot blanket to suffocate him, and if he held still long enough he was sure that peaceful oblivion would return to him eventually. But every moment that he closed his eyes, the caustic memories of his nightmare came back to him. He tried to stave them off, but they seemed to insist on torturing him. He reimagined it over and over, never once of his own volition. That live, disintegrating sky. Her horribly leaking face, wrought with unbridled grief. He’d never feared Delilah so much as he did now.

As he lay and gazed up at the darkened ceiling, he couldn’t help but wonder about what had become of her. Was she a vengeful spirit now? Did she hate him for insulting her the way that he had? Was she angry that he was having a child without her now, not long after he had wanted nothing more than to make a life with her? More than anything, he wondered: What if she came back to haunt him?

It was at that moment that he first felt the fluttering. The feeling was barely noticeable at first. As he lay still and thought unwillingly of his nightmare and Delilah and what his life had become, he felt what he thought might be a nervous twitch in his stomach, possibly a fit of nausea striking him at an unusual time. It didn’t take long for him to realize that the feeling wasn’t coming from the right place, but somewhere else, just a little lower than where the sickening pains always struck. He gasped a little at the revelation, then went stock-still, barely even breathing, the way he had when he had first listened to the beating heart inside of him through Johona’s stethoscope. He stopped everything else and turned all his efforts to his senses. The more he focused, the more distinct the feeling became.

It was a soft, fluttering feeling, like the frantically beating wings of a moth or his hair being ruffled by the wind. The sensation was faint, but impossible to miss. Peter shifted a little, and at the same time the flutter in his abdomen grew stronger, as if it objected to his change in position. It took a long time for the reality of what he felt to sink in. The little creature that lived inside him- the _baby_ \- was moving. It was moving, and he could feel everything.

Peter didn’t know whether to be fascinated or frightened. The sensation was unlike anything he’d experienced before, not entirely unpleasant, and there was the intriguing element of the unknown that caught hold of his scientist’s curiosity. Yet it was that same concept, the unknown, that struck a sharp, paralyzing blade of fear through his heart. He’d been totally unable to predict what this would feel like when Johona had warned him about it so many weeks before. Now that it was actually happening, it felt even more bizarre.

Back when all he’d felt was occasional sickness, and even when his stomach began to swell, he’d been able to take his mind off of what was happening to him every now and then. Johona reminded him whenever she could, of course, but he had come to expect that from her. This, to say the least, would change things drastically. If this continued, and he felt it every time the thing moved, he’d never be able to forget again. He’d have to face what was happening, knowing all the while that he couldn’t control a single part of it and that he didn’t know what was in store for him in the future. He didn’t know what scared him more: what getting knocked up had already done to him, or what it might do to him later on.

The movements began to slow down after a while. Peter shifted up on the pillows, trying to angle himself so that he could better see the blurry outline of his belly, barely visible in the absence of light. The only illumination, aside from the meager rays that slipped through the curtains, was a faint bluish glow that seemed to be situated in his abdomen.

Peter stared. There wasn’t much more that he could do. If his eyes weren’t deceiving him, it appeared that his belly was now glowing. He had somehow gained the ability to produce light, in addition to everything else about him that had changed. He wasn’t sure how to react. He was half-asleep as it was, and this was only one more oddity to add to the list of things he had already seen.

Over the past weeks, his stomach had been growing steadily larger. It seemed to have been doing so at a faster rate than before. He was already beginning to feel the weight of it pulling on the rest of him, his skin starting to stretch to accommodate the life developing beneath it. It had been some time since he’d given up on trying to wear vests, and he could barely fasten the buttons on his lab coat over his distended body anymore. Johona seemed to take it all as a good sign, but Peter wasn’t so sure that it was normal for a human embryo to be increasing in size so rapidly. As for Iris, he hadn’t the slightest clue what she thought of all of it. She had been rather quiet in her first weeks living at the manor. He had been meaning to speak to her about all of this at some point, but had simply never been able to gather the courage. She barely said anything to him on the matter, only ever asked about his condition and how he felt, but he had seen her looking at him. There was no way that she could have missed the fact that in only three weeks, the secretive little swell that she had touched less than a month before had almost doubled in size.

 _Maybe it really isn’t human at all_ , Peter thought to himself, gazing at the dim blue light that faded out towards the edges of his body. Registering his stillness, the creature squirmed, as if to see if he still knew it was there. The longer he held still, the less he felt the persistent fluttering, and soon thoughts of sleep returned to Peter’s mind. He laid back down and closed his eyes.

Almost immediately, he felt the fluttering start up again. Instinctively, Peter placed his hands on his belly, his fingertips pressing gently into his warm, firm-stretched skin. The contact seemed to calm it down a little, as he instantly felt its movements start to slow. Before long, it had stopped. Peter suspected that maybe it had fallen asleep. He lay still and tried to do the same. This time, instead of horrifying visions of Delilah, his mind wandered to even stranger things.

He imagined the tiny, half-formed organism nestled in some uncharted place inside of him, curled up and sleeping peacefully. The picture made him feel giddy, for some odd reason, and once the feeling took hold, he shook himself awake to try and erase it. His mind couldn’t hold up to the delirium of sleep, though, and each time he tried to break away from those nonsensical thoughts and emotions, the harder he fell back to them, until eventually he was so deep in them that he no longer bothered to escape. His eyes closed, his mouth absently twitched into half a dreamy smile. His palms felt warm against his stomach, and the baby remained still beneath them, having drifted off to sleep so long before him. Maybe he needed some giant to shelter him with its hands so he too could be as calm as the little creature seemed to be.

 _That might be nice_ , he thought as he drifted off. _Whatever it is, wherever it is, it must be happy there_

* * *

“Mr. Walter?”

Peter took a deep breath and groaned in an attempt to respond. “Hhhhhh... I-Iris?”

“Y-yes, it’s me. Would you allow me to come in?”

He sat up with quite a bit of struggle and swallowed the repulsive feelings of nausea as he grabbed his nightshirt from the end of the bed and hastily pulled it over his head. “S-surely,” he stammered as he laid himself back down on his side as he had been before.

The door creaked open and Iris slipped into the room. “It’s nearly ten in the morning,” she politely informed him. “I-I came to see if you were feeling alright.”

Peter squinted at her through the bright golden light of the morning sun and drew a shaky inhale before saying, short and to the point, “I’m not.”

Concern creased Iris’s brow. “What is it? Morning sickness?”

“Probably,” Peter replied, although he had to suppress a gag as he did.

“Oh, dear.” Iris sighed and tugged at the ties of her apron. “Johona warned us it might be recurrent. You’d been doing so well, too.”

“Good things don’t last, apparently.”

“Would you like me to bring you some tea?”

A smile crept onto the visible half of Peter’s face. “Please.”

“I’ll be back in a moment, then.” Iris’s expression mirrored his as she backed away, leaving the door open in her wake. When she was gone, Peter squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his right temple with his free hand. His insides were spasming as they hadn’t in weeks. When the nauseous fits became less frequent, Peter had thought that he might be finished with them. But his friend had told him otherwise, regardless of whether or not he had decided to listen.

Iris returned within a few minutes, holding a teacup and a saucer. She set them down on Peter’s bedside table and watched him with great care as he dragged himself into a sitting position. It was difficult, considering the fact that the creature in his belly had woken up right along with him and was now squirming without mercy. He struggled to keep his composure, trying not to betray how disturbed he truly felt. Iris had enough to worry about without him giving her any more strangeness to weigh on her mind.

Doing his best to ignore the persistent flutter in his stomach, Peter reached for the cup of medicinal tea and took a grateful sip. The maid had managed to get the temperature perfect this time, and he sighed after his mouth left the edge of the cup, the heavy herbal smell of the remedy wafting into his lungs. For a second, he thought he saw a shy smile playing at her lips. He turned to her to find that it was true, even though it faded as soon as his eyes met with hers. “Is something the matter?” he asked.

“N-nothing,” Iris quickly replied. “Only happy to help you. That’s all.”

After another few sips of the remedy, Peter placed the cup back on its saucer and laid back on the pillows. His guts still felt as though they were compressed in a vice, but if he breathed deeply enough and didn’t move, he seemed able to keep it at bay. The thing inside him had since stopped moving, and that did wonders to keep the rest of his discombobulated body in check.

“Does your head hurt?” Iris asked all of a sudden.

Peter blinked slowly before turning to her. “Not too badly, but I am feeling a little dizzy.”

“W-would you like me to help fix it? Johona taught me a little about pressure points. J-just in case you ever needed it, she said.”

“Could you?”

“Alright,” Iris said softly, nodding to herself. “Alright.” Hesitantly, she began to reach towards him, her hands and fingers outstretched, but the stopped short and took them back in a matter of seconds. “W-wait, I should ask first... W-would it be okay if I, um... if I touched you a little? Just your head and neck. Th-that’s all.”

Peter sighed, a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips. It was just like her, always hesitating and asking permission before doing anything. It was funny, really, how often she felt the need to do it. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Just about anything would be better than feeling like _this_ for another hour.”

Iris seemed to light up at the notion. Moving slowly, she positioned herself by Peter’s shoulder and gingerly placed her fingertips in different places on his temples and forehead. She pressed gently down and began to stroke her fingers over his face and scalp. Peter closed his eyes and took a slow breath, allowing her to work on him at her own pace. The maid gently pressed her fingertips to his temples and specific spots scattered over his forehead and skull. It was incredibly relaxing. He felt almost as if she was taking the troubles from his head and pulling them out through her fingers. The chaos in his head slowly smoothed out, and even after it was gone, she kept working. Peter made no effort to stop her. He didn’t want her to. It seemed a silly thing to admit, but he liked the feeling of her hands. They were warm, dry and callused. He thought they felt capable and protective as they ran over his skin. Iris made him feel safe, and that was something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. And there was something about it that just felt so... intimate.

It wasn’t often that anyone played with his hair. Maybe it had happened once or twice in recent history, on some of his drunken binges, but he didn’t remember any of those instances. Even if he did, they wouldn’t have meant anything to him now. He had never taken the time to consider exactly how much he liked it, the feeling of a stranger’s fingers running across his scalp and gently pulling the strands in different directions. He was practically melting in Iris’s hands as she did it, the feeling easing his fears almost enough to put him to sleep. If anyone had played with his hair like this before, he didn’t remember. He wished he did, though. Maybe Ernest had.

_Ernest?_

Peter’s eyes flew open, and he felt Iris’s hands disappear from his scalp. The maid stood over him, her soft eyes observing him with care. “Is that any better, Mr. Walter?”

“Y-yes. Much better.” He sat up again and reached over to take another drink of tea. He kept his eyes away from Iris, and a wave of queasiness ran through him, even though he only just managed to calm the nausea in his system. That name. Ernest. He knew it from somewhere. But where had it come from? Who was Ernest, and why did he remember his name?

Iris must have noticed his distress, since the next thing out of he mouth was, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Peter nodded and looked back up at her, his flashback quickly forgotten. “Of course I am.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I don’t believe so.” He set the tea back down and glanced at himself. “Though I should probably get dressed sometime soon.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to it, sir.” Iris gave him a pert nod and left the room. As he always did, Peter watched the spot she had occupied for a few moments after she had left it. Iris definitely seemed to be getting more comfortable with him. Granted, the interaction was a bit odd. He wasn’t sure what sort of a maid was willing to be so personal with her employer, but somehow she had known that he had needed it. He wouldn’t have traded Iris for anyone. And as the thought crossed his mind, he felt the creature in his stomach flip itself over.

Peter winced and pressed a hand to his belly. The sudden movement hadn’t hurt so much as it had startled him. The thing had been still for a while, and he’d thought maybe it was finished with torturing him for the morning, but apparently it wasn’t comfortable where it rested anymore. He sighed and resignedly stood up, letting it squirm as much as it wanted while he found some halfway-decent clothes to wear. It was moving much more than it had been in the past few days since he had started to feel it. At times he wondered what made it so restless, but he was never quite able to find an answer. Once dressed, Peter made his way out to the hallway and started for the lab. He had a full day of work ahead of him, and hopefully he’d be able to get something significant done.

When he reached the lower landing, Peter caught the faint scent of cinnamon and butter drifting through the air. He could only guess at where it came from. Johona had left before he had even woken up, so it couldn’t have been caused by her. Led by curiosity, he wandered from the foyer into the kitchen and was met with the sight of Iris standing in front of the wood-burning stove, mitts over her hands, pulling one tray of cinnamon rolls from the fire and sliding another into its place. The counters were stained with flour, and ingredients sat like soldiers in orderly rows beside a few mixing bowls that were sticky with dough and glaze.

“Iris,” Peter began, but before he could go any further, the maid sensed his presence. She spun around to face him, eyes wide, and pushed the oven hatch shut.

“M-Mr. Walter!” she cried out in surprise. “I-I’m terribly sorry about the mess. I’ll have it cleaned in no time, I promise. I-I only had to, um... f-finish a few things...”

“It’s alright, Iris! It’s fine.” A smile pulled at the corners of Peter’s mouth, and he started to laugh. “I don’t care about the mess. That’s what cooking _does_.”

“I... I’ll still... have to clean it, though.” Iris looked away, seeming embarrassed. Peter looked at her for a moment, and seeing she was unresponsive, turned his focus to the stove just past where she stood. A tray of hot cinnamon rolls sat on the grate, their filling still glistening, and a bowl of icing sat on the closest counter waiting to be drizzled over the tight swirls of each roll. Were it not for the remains of the baking Iris had done, the sight would have been an oddly familiar one.

“Iris,” Peter began again, “were you the one who kept leaving pastries out for me?”

The maid stared at him, one hand clutching the oven mitts and the other twitching nervously at her side. “U-um... I... I haven’t done it in a while, and... and I thought maybe you would notice, but you never said anything. I-I thought... maybe you didn’t want them anymore. But I had a free moment, so I...” She trailed off and glanced over at the mess of baking materials, then the tray of rolls on top of the stove. Peter was the last thing to catch her gaze, and her eyes begged him for forgiveness.

“So it was you,” he said softly.

“It was.” Iris sounded ashamed of what she had done. Peter couldn’t begin to imagine why. Maybe it was because he’d never requested it of her, and that fact alone made her intrinsically believe that what she did was wrong. But it didn’t make sense to him. The way he saw it, there was no place for an apology when it came to baked goods.  _Was it really so obvious that no one else was going to do it for me?_  he thought. _Did she think that the responsibility rested solely on her?_  

“That was so kind of you,” he said, giving Iris a genuine smile.

As soon as she registered the look on his face, the tension in Iris’s form seemed to ease. “Th-thank you, Mr. Walter,” she stuttered in reply.

“Here. I’ll give you a hand with the rest of it,” he went on. He strode towards the counter where the used ingredients had been laid out and spattered on the countertop.

Iris quickly rushed to his side and intercepted him. “N-no, it’s fine Mr. Walter. I can handle it.”

At that, he backed off a little. “You’re sure?”

“W-well... it’s what you hired me for, isn’t it?”

Peter inhaled to reply, but couldn’t bring himself to speak. Iris did have a point. As he looked down at her, she met his gaze persistently with her own, a determined look in her eyes. As it was, she seemed dead-set on serving him in any way she could, and he could see no reason to deny her. If this was how she derived joy from her life, he may as well let her do as she wished. Or as he wished, since that seemed to be what held her interest the most.

“Alright,” he surrendered, taking a step back and giving her a polite nod. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Th-thank you, Mr. Walter.”

And there she went again, thanking him for orders. “There’s no need to thank me, Iris. You’re only doing your job the best you can, however you see fit. It’s not my place to question you.”

“Is it really?”

The tone of her question made him pause. He stopped in his path out of the kitchen and turned back to her. “Of course it is. Just like how it’s not my place to question how Johona handles me. We all have our places in the world. Maybe yours happens to be right here.”

“If you say so, Mr. Walter.” Iris was smiling, and her expression made Peter’s chest feel warm and fuzzy. “If that’s really what you think is true, then... I-I’m happy that I’m here.”

“Good. You have every right to be.” He meant to leave their conversation at that, but he stopped in the doorway and leaned against the edge to look back one last time. “Oh, and Iris?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve been here a long time. You can call me Peter instead of Mr. Walter, if you like.”

Iris’s eyes lit up at the suggestion, and she quickly averted them, her eyelashes fluttering on her cheeks. “O-of course,” she said. “I’d love to... Peter.”

Her reaction surprised him a little. She seemed delighted, and it perplexed him how she could delight so much in a simple request. To call him by his first name. That was all that he’d asked. It wasn’t even a request, only an affirmation that she needn’t be so formal with him all the time. It was a matter of little import, though. Iris was happy, and that alone was enough.

Peter disappeared into the lab, feeling as if he’d done something meaningful that morning.

* * *

The metal ends of Johona’s measuring tape felt cold on Peter’s skin, having been moved too often to warm up. She smiled mischievously as she held it first around his waist, then to his torso, stretching it flat from one side of his belly to the other. “Nearly a whole inch more than last week,” she said almost triumphantly, picking up her notebook to scribble down her record of his measurements. “And you’re only eighteen weeks along. You’re growing fast.”

Peter sighed, exasperated by her enthusiasm, which to him seemed a bit excessive. Even in the isolation of the lab, Johona’s thorough and energetic observation of his condition was starting to get on his nerves. “Do you really have to put it like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” she tossed back. “Would you rather I use more technical terms?”

“No, not really.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” She stood up from rifling through her medical bag on the floor, the Pinard stethoscope neatly folded up in her hand.

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “I just... I don’t like hearing it pointed out.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt ashamed to have said them. They sounded so much stupider when he said them out loud than when they ran through his head, but now they were out in the open and he couldn’t take them back.

“So would you rather have me not tell you about your own condition?” Johona pressed onward, leaning over her friend where he laid back on the lab table. “Are you really that insecure?”

“I’m not. Just forget that I said it.”

“But if you don’t want to hear me talk about-”

“I said forget it. Look, I’m...” Peter paused to take a breath. “It’s only that _this_ is causing all sorts of problems. I don’t understand it, even though I’ve been trying to for months, and you know how frustrating that is for me. And because I can’t comprehend it, I can’t make it stop or reverse, it’s...” He paused when he felt the creature stir under Johona’s touch, then took a shaky breath. “It’s changing me so much. Everything is happening too fast. I just... I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“I know what you mean. But if you don’t mind me asking,” Johona said, setting the earpieces of her stethoscope around her neck, “what was it like to be _you_? Not the way you are now, but before I came to San Diego. How different are you now from the way you were before?”

The question wasn’t one that Peter could easily answer. He lay still, quiet for a moment while Johona pressed the cool metal bell of her stethoscope against his abdomen. As she moved it from place to place, he found himself unable to find an answer to give her. He didn’t have one he’d be willing to say aloud, anyway.

If he were to be completely candid, he would have admitted that his life before had been dismal at best. Between losing Thaddeus to Africa and Delilah to her illness, his days had been growing steadily darker, and a huge, blackened chasm existed between then and the day he found out that he was carrying a life inside of him. That space remained dark as it was with good reason. He didn’t like remembering the sad excuse for a life that he had been living in that stretch of time. The dark, foggy forgetfulness blocked out whatever remained from those days in the back of his mind. They tasted like the bitter sting of hard liquor and salt from countless days’ worth of tears, smelled like grease and fire and sweat, sounded like his own stifled cries of mourning, the screech of metal as he disassembled the massive giraffe he’d made and hid its pieces away in the cellar, and more than anything, they were filled the empty, torturous silence that his own home had always echoed back to him, a perpetual reminder that he was alone and a looming threat that he always would be.

He had tried to put it behind him. Ignoring it hadn’t worked. Neither had drinking himself half to death. He’d had nothing to distract him from his grief until he started getting sick. Then the impossible had happened, and suddenly all the sounds and sensations of those dark days were replaced by a pulse that Johona had heard beating in his stomach.

Paying no mind to her friend’s nonexistent response, Johona continued searching for a clear presentation of a heartbeat. For a moment, she stilled in one spot and pressed the stethoscope bell harder against his skin. The lab was almost totally silent, and it was then that Peter realized how long she was taking to find it. He watched as she held the bell firmly in place and listened, ominously still with her eyebrows knitted in concentration. For some reason, seeing her like that made Peter worry. After another tense, silent minute, he couldn’t take the anticipation anymore. Heart in his throat, he asked, “What is it?”

At first, Johona didn’t respond, only listened some more. Then she moved her stethoscope to the other side of his abdomen and held it there.“That’s strange,” she murmured after another minute had passed. Slowly, a knowing smirk spread across her face.

“What is?”

“Well,” she began, looking at Peter with all confusion gone from her face, “either your child has two hearts on opposite ends of its body, or you’re having a set of twins.”

Peter’s heart stopped its nervous palpitation on the spot. He stared at Johona, unable to blink, barely even able to breathe. She might as well have told him he’d sprout gills and become a fish, and he still would have been less stunned by the impact.

“Twins?” he choked out.

“Yes, twins,” she repeated. “I’m reading a heartbeat in two different places on you. I don’t know how I could have missed it before. Usually, things like this can be determined a little earlier on, but...” She shrugged. “I suppose no one patient can be the same as the next.”

Peter could barely hear what she was saying. His ears were filled with white noise, the frantic rush of his pulse throbbing in his ears. He craned his neck to look down at himself, and his eyes fixed on his distended belly that had grown so much faster in the past few weeks than it had before, its bluish light invisible under the lab’s fluorescents, but there all the same. Johona continued to listen to each individual half-developed heart, seeming oblivious to the piercing, dead-eyed stare that her friend had fixated on his own body. She couldn’t have been serious. Knowing that he was responsible for bringing one life into the world was pressure enough. He’d spent months with anxiety collapsing him from the inside out, self-consciousness wrapping him up like spider silk, his brain being slowly crushed by the weight of his own improbable existence, and all of this was only from the knowledge that he had somehow conceived _one_ child. And now...

“I’m having twins,” he murmured. He barely believed the words, even as he said them.

Johona glanced up and finally caught sight of the stunned expression on her friend’s face. “Yes. You are,” she said slowly and warily. A second later, she added, “This is a little odd, coming from you. You normally don’t believe me so easily.”

“I don’t?”

The nurse shook her head.

“Maybe that’s because I don’t have any reason to doubt what you say anymore.”

“You mean the way that I doubted you when you told me you suspected that you were pregnant in the first place?” It sounded like an attempt at a joke, but neither of them felt much like laughing.

“That was a different time,” Peter resignedly said. “You had a reason to back then. Both of us did. I was trying to cling to a little bit of normalcy. I had doubts, almost all of them more than reasonable. Even after you came and found out the truth, and the denial wasn’t reasonable anymore, sometimes I still wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong. But now...” He sat up, still looking down at the swell of his stomach, gesturing at it with his hands. “You can _see_ it. I’ve heard its heart, and I’ve felt it move, and I know that it-” He paused to correct himself. “That _they_ are real. They’re alive, and they made me _glow_ , for god’s sake. No matter how much I try to escape the truth, it keeps catching up with me. So tell me, Jo. Does it sound like I still have any right to doubt what you tell me?”

Johona met his eyes and held them steady with an intrepid, unwavering gaze. “I never thought you did,” she said.

Peter looked away from her and sighed in surrender, eyes cast to the floor. “Of course you didn’t,” he said. “I’m only an engineer, after all.”

“And not one who asked for a child to be suddenly dropped into his life. Or two, as seems to be your case.” She smiled a little and affectionately patted his belly. Peter grew involuntarily tense, as he always did when people unexpectedly touched him. He couldn’t blame Johona for finding him fascinating. For someone as obsessed with life science as she was, it was hardly surprising that she got so excited over keeping track of him, taking notes on his condition, asking him questions and, especially, feeling his stomach. She’d been doing it more often, especially over the last few days since he had first told her that he’d started to feel the two little creatures moving inside of him. It was only because she wanted to know. However, no amount of understanding could change how uneasy her scrutiny made him feel.

“Is there anything else that needs to be discussed?” he asked. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to get the examination over with and cover himself up again.

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Unless you want to hear their heartbeats for yourself.”

In spite of his insecurity, Peter told her that he did. Excited, Johona instructed him to lay back down as she located both the individual pulses that resided in his belly. She marked them out with shreds of surgical tape, handed the earpieces to him and let him listen first to one, then the other. When she held the bell in place, he heard the same sound as before, a quick and steady _thump_ like the sprinting feet of a rabbit, though now, in each spot, there was a fuzzy and distant rhythm that whispered in the background behind the one that rang clearly in his ears. Maybe their hearts hadn’t been strong enough to both be heard at once before, Peter theorized. All things considered, it didn’t very much matter how Johona had missed it. However one twin had managed to avoid detection, he knew that both of them were there now.

“Are you alright?” Johona asked out of the blue.

Her voice pulled Peter out of his haze. He had been staring off into space for some time, the earpieces of the stethoscope still in place and transmitting the sound of the pulses into his ears. He quickly took them out and handed them back to her. “Yes, I’m fine,” he quickly said, before he reconsidered his words. “Or I almost am.”

His friend didn’t ask him what he meant. He was glad she didn’t. While she packed up her medical bag, he quickly slipped his shirt back on. He stood up to leave, but found that Johona was blocking his path. “Was it difficult for you to hear?” she asked.

“The pulses, you mean?”

“Any of it.”

Peter breathed a hesitant sigh and looked at Johona, a response wavering on his lips but unable to free itself and be heard. She always had to ask questions like this. Finding the will to answer them still took some getting used to. “I want to say it wasn’t,” he said. “But I know that isn’t the kind of response you’re looking for.”

“You’re upset?”

He nodded weakly, unable to speak. A single offspring was unplanned enough. But two of them? It was more than something he hadn’t asked for. It was being assaulted by fate itself. It was as if the cosmos had decided that he wasn’t yet suffering enough under the strain of living. But...

Even as the thoughts ran through his mind, he felt guilty for thinking them. Even though he didn’t want the responsibility of having to carry two lives in his body for however long they decided to stay there, even though he was disgusted by his actions and their consequences and horrified by his body and what it was forcing itself to do, and even though he was scared to death of what might come afterward, he didn’t feel right directing it all toward the babies. It wasn’t their fault. As much as he hadn’t wanted them so unexpectedly, they had never asked to be conceived. Unlike him, they were innocent. They were only doing their best to survive. They didn’t deserve to be hated like this.

“I’ve fallen in so much deeper than I ever could have guessed,” Peter said.

A second passed, and he felt Johona’s hand come to rest on his arm. “I’ve told you before how brave you are, haven’t I?”

“More times than I bothered to remember,” he wearily replied.

“You should know that that hasn’t changed,” she stated. Her fingers reassuringly squeezed his arm. “You can still back out, if you want to.”

For a moment, Peter was surprised by her suggestion. “Is that possible?”

“If you were desperate enough, I’m sure we could figure something out.”

“I...” All of a sudden, he found it difficult to speak. Words stuck in his throat, unable to emerge. Not a moment before, he’d been despairing, panicking, projecting all manner of disasters into the future over the discovery that his condition was more serious than he had previously thought. But in a matter of seconds, as soon as the implication of a threat was made, the agonized worry about his own life disappeared. His thoughts turned toward the two creatures, the two hearts that he’d heard beating only a few minutes before. _Protect them_ , a voice whispered in the back of his mind. _Protect them._

“I don’t want to,” he said without thinking. “I’ve already decided that I’m not going to try to back out anymore.”

Johona smiled at him. “That’s the spirit,” she said, putting an arm around him to pull him close. The embrace was a little awkward, with Peter’s stomach being compressed between them. One of the twins wriggled in discomfort, Johona felt it, and it quickly convinced her to let go. Once they were separated again, she asked, “How do you think Iris will take the news?”

“I don’t know,” Peter replied with a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t think it’ll affect her very much. It isn’t like she’ll be the one who has to carry them.”

“Well, I suppose you can call a neutral reaction a good reaction.” She went ahead toward the stairs, Peter at her heels. “Do you remember whose turn it is to cook tonight?”

“I did it last night, so I think that means it’s yours, though Iris will probably step in at some point. You know she always does.”

“She does,” Johona agreed. As she reached for the light switch by the stairs, she asked, “Does it ever bother you when she does that?”

“No,” he replied. “I must be used to it already.”

“Me too.”

The lights were shut off, and the two of them left the dark, empty lab behind.

* * *

Iris didn’t usually have very much spare time, but when she did, it made her glad that her parents had bothered with teaching her how to read.

Out of all the rooms on the first floor, she would have chosen the library as her favorite. She had come to the decision a long time ago, and had never wavered from it. The reasons for it were many; She enjoyed plentiful sunlight that streamed through the tall windows, and she’d always had a secret fondness for the comforting smell of worn paper and leather bindings. Of course, there was also the fact that the library was the closest she could get to the lab in the basement without disturbing Peter. She was smart enough to keep her habits in check when it came to him. She had housekept for geniuses like him before, and she had learned from unpleasant experience that they did not like being interrupted while they worked. So, unless it was otherwise stated, in the library she would stay.

She’d spent almost a whole hour beforehand wandering around the house, trying to find something that needed to be done. The better part of the day had been dedicated to clearing ashes from fireplaces, sweeping and scrubbing floors, polishing windows, and a number of other things. She had taken a short break to make lunch for her employer when he emerged from his workspace, and he had told her he appreciated it, which had brightened her day a little. She went out afterwards to run some errands for him, pick up a few items from shops in the city and collect his mail. But by the late afternoon, she’d found herself out of chores to perform. Johona still had yet to come home, and she couldn’t let herself be caught idling in the house where she had been hired to work. So she had spent countless minutes trying to find something new. Even after Johona had arrived, she hadn’t managed to find even a single thing that needed to be done.

After a few minutes’ deliberation and a bit of sliding around on the shelf ladder whose wheels she made a point of keeping well-oiled, she had picked out a single volume from the seemingly endless array of books that Peter Walter had at his disposal. She’d passed by myriad other things in her search: scads of textbooks, instructional guides, thick, complex tomes on mechanics and electricity, metalsmithing, chemistry, biology, psychology and a thousand other subjects that Iris could never hope to comprehend. Then she’d come across his fiction. He had an eclectic taste in books, and an almost shocking variety of names and genres in his collection. When she finally came across something she recognized, she pulled it from the shelf.

Perched in an armchair and forty pages deep into _Pride and Prejudice_ , Iris heard the familiar _clack_ of the latches on the laboratory door. She stiffened at the sound, and her gaze snapped up from the book in her lap to fix on the heavy wooden door. She watched it swing open. Johona emerged first, halfway through speaking a sentence she didn’t understand, her face drawn up with a hint of a smile. Mr.Walter- _Peter_ , Iris thought, reminding herself of his request- followed close behind. He seemed just as calm as he usually did when Johona was near, but as soon as Iris laid eyes on him, she knew his composure was only a facade.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what had tipped her off. It might have been the cloudy look in his eyes, or the faint lines on his forehead that hinted at it having recently been fixed into a frown. Her eyes drifted down from his face to his body, just as they always did, before quickly turning back up. _Focus_ , she instructed herself. Even if she couldn’t put a name to it, something was amiss.

Peter glanced in her direction and finally noticed her sitting in the armchair. He smiled, as seemed to be his habit whenever he saw her. “Hello, Iris,” he greeted her.

On instinct, Iris stood up to address him. “Good evening, Miste- uh, Peter,” she stuttered. Calling her employer by his first name would definitely take some getting used to.

“Still taking care of spiders?”

“Um, n-no, actually. The spiders have been gone for a while. I... I finished the work you assigned to me this morning, and I couldn’t find anything else that needed to be done, so I...” She hesitated, glancing nervously back at the book, which she had left resting open on the chair. “I-I had nothing more to do, and I remembered your library was here, s-so I decided... I-I apologize, Mr. Walter, I should have asked first, but you were busy and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

Peter’s smile didn’t fade as she still feared it might, in spite of all the times he’d forgiven her for similar infractions. “It’s perfectly fine if you want to borrow a book, Iris,” he said, laughing a little as he spoke. “If you haven’t noticed, they aren’t exactly a rare artifact in my house.”

“Oh. Y-yes, right. Still... thank you.”

“Speaking of chores, I suppose I should be getting on with dinner,” Johona cut in, already sweeping toward the door. “I’ll just leave you to yourselves.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Peter called after her, but his friend had already left before he could finish speaking. He stared after her for a moment, sighed, then approached Iris. “What are you reading?”

“Only the first author that I recognized when I was looking through the shelves,” Iris replied. A nervous giggle bubbled up through her words, and she silently scolded herself for sounding so much like a frivolous schoolgirl.

Peter picked up the book she had left, taking care to hold her page as he turned the cover over to read the title. “Jane Austen? I can’t really say I’m surprised.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, a few friends of mine used to tease me for reading women’s novels,” he explained flippantly, and Iris let herself laugh a little. “And, if you don’t mind me saying, you always have struck me as a bit of a romantic.”

Iris felt her cheeks grow hot. “I have?”

He nodded. “It’s not the easiest thing to explain, and Johona can tell you that I am far from the most skilled at reading other people, but if I’m right, I suppose you can call it a lucky guess.”

“Then... you guessed correctly.”

“You know, _Pride and Prejudice_ has been popular for quite a while. I’m surprised you haven’t read it before.”

“Well, I tried to. I borrowed it from a library once, but... too busy to finish before it had to be returned.”

“So you’re a completionist, then?”

“If you want to call it that.” Iris giggled once more before she finally composed herself. “Um... how did the examination go?” she asked.

At the mention of the examination, Peter’s already pallid face seemed to pale even further. “The examination?”

“Yes. The one you just finished. It was for eighteen weeks, right?”

“It was.”

His matter-of-fact tone screamed a warning at Iris. She was treading in dangerous territory, asking him about this. “D-did it go well?” she pressed onward. “Is everything alright?”

“It is,” Peter said, just as flatly as before. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

 _In a manner of speaking_. That phrase bothered Iris. It was infuriatingly vague. She couldn’t bring herself to get angry at Peter for being so equivocal. He was nervous enough about everything that was going on in his life, and Iris had no place in making matters any worse than they already were.

“W-what does that mean?” she unsteadily asked.

“Um... well, there’s nothing wrong. Not physically or medically, or anything like that.” As he spoke, Peter seemed to be growing increasingly nervous. His lips trembled, as if he were struggling to find the right words to say. With each passing second, worry sank its teeth further and further into Iris’s heart. He said there was nothing medically wrong. Did that mean that the baby was alright? More importantly, was _he_ alright?

“Then what is it?” Without thinking, Iris placed her hand on his forearm, trying to coax him into speaking. He didn’t react, but she hoped that what little she could do was helping.

“It’s...” Peter paused and took a breath before meeting her gaze again. “I’m having twins.”

“Twins?” Her eyes lit up.

“Yes, twins.”

A slow smile began to pull at Iris’s face. Her heart felt full of firecrackers, sparking and crackling with every pulse of its chambers. So whatever magic that had worked on Peter wasn’t finished with him yet! He was having twins. Not just one impossible conception, but two! It had turned out to be even more of a miracle than what it already was.  

“Why, Peter that’s...” Iris started, but she stopped herself before she went any further. It took her a second to remember. The realization hit her like a freight car. He didn’t think the same way that she did. Twins didn’t mean the same thing to him that they did to her. She quickly composed herself and rethought her response. “That’s... twins.” She offered him an encouraging smile.

Peter didn’t seem to accept it. “You’re excited?” he wearily asked. The question was listless in the air between them, and Iris had no idea how she was supposed to answer.

She started to freeze up. She’d misstepped and gone too far. She just knew it. “I... sh-should I not be?”

“There’s really nothing that you should or shouldn’t be. I’m only asking how you feel.”

His words didn’t make Iris feel any better. As impassive as he sounded, she still felt as though she had said the wrong thing and upset him. “I... I don’t know how to feel.”

Peter lowered his gaze, not meeting hers any longer. Iris’s guilty conscience began to scream in the back of her mind. She shouldn’t have bothered to lie. He already knew. He knew that she was happy to see him anxious and suffering. “If you _are_ excited, that’s perfectly fine,” he said. “It’s how most people would react, and there’s nothing that I can do to change you.”

Iris found her eyes wandering again, resting for some time on her employer’s body, and she quickly turned them away. She knew he didn’t like being gawked at. Still, she felt compelled to. She could barely restrain herself, standing as close to him as she was. Looking at him wasn’t all she wanted to do. She wanted to gaze at him until she’d memorized every detail of his impossible body, watch him, observe how he lived until she finally felt she could understand him at the deepest level possible. She wanted to touch him, kiss him, put her ear to his belly and listen to the fast little hearts that she’d heard the one time that Johona had given her the stethoscope. She wanted to ask him what it was like, to know how it felt to be bringing life into the world. But that wouldn’t be right of her. As much as he couldn’t change the way she felt, she couldn’t change him either.

After a long, tense silence, Iris hesitantly spoke up. “I-it is a little exciting, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.” A tired smile twitched at the corners of Peter’s mouth, and that small change in his demeanor made Iris feel so much safer. “What about it makes you excited?”

Her ability to tread carefully restored, Iris tentatively replied, “Well... you said it yourself. It’s how most people would react, isn’t it?”

He nodded, sighed and looked toward the doorway. “I should probably see what Johona’s up to.”

“I’ll let you alone, then,” Iris resignedly said. As he turned away, she suddenly remembered her afternoon of errands. “Peter?” she called after him, and he stopped and turned back to her.

“Yes?”

“You had letters in your box at the post office today. One of them was marked urgent.”

He had frozen in the doorway. He was turned around completely now, gazing at her with a startled look in his eyes. She had his attention now. “Who was it from?” he asked.

“I-I can’t remember the name. I left them on the table in the foyer.”

Without another word, he turned on a heel and started toward the front door. Iris chased after him, almost jogging to keep up with his long strides. He found the stack of letters right away and began to shuffle through them. The alluded letter was in the middle of the stack, the word _URGENT_ stamped in bold letters with blood-red ink along the edge of the envelope. The return address was in Africa, the site of the offices for the Dandy Candy corporation, and the name of the sender was Taggart Babclock.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, this is certainly a place to end a chapter if I've ever seen one.  
> Also it's after 4 am, and i am going to want death tomorrow because of this. I knew there was a reason why I decided it was a bad idea to keep trying to post on Fridays.  
> Either way, that's what I did. And here's your update, you filthy ingrates.  
> See you next chapter.


	12. An Urgent Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving. This year, I'm thankful for the fact that weird garbage like this can exist on the internet with no consequences. I'm also thankful for all the people who I suckered into reading it. How many of you are out there? 20? I don't really know. Probably not many.  
> Skanksgiving. There are more important things to do than this, and yet here we are.  
> I hope nobody minded the fact that I casually forgot to title the last chapter I posted and just kind of ran back in there and gave it a title a few minutes ago. Hope you enjoyed that twist. Please post using blacklisted tags (Sexpg) and the others i mentioned last time (fic: alaout, fic: artificial life, all that drivel).  
> As we speak, another one of my friends, the gracious TheWhimsicalBard, is putting up with my garbage to give me feedback and attention. This is very kind of her. Thank her for her service. In addition, thank volatileSoloiste, cicada_s and Feep for theirs. I can't believe how far I've managed to spread this virus, at least among the people I actually know in real life. They're probably the only ones who are reading this author's note right now. You hear me, guys? You're a bunch of weenies. Thanks for dealing with me and my issues.  
> Sincerely, the biggest weenie at Weenie Hut Junior's.

 

“Taggart Babclock?” Peter murmured, reading the name on the back of the envelope over and over again. The name lost a bit of its meaning with each repetition, going on until the letters were nothing but scribbles of ink on paper. “What is he sending me a letter for?”

Iris had just caught up to him, a few curls fallen loose from the knot at the back of her head. “Wh-who is Taggart Babclock?”

“An old friend of a friend,” he explained, speaking automatically. “Or a man who used to be a friend of a friend. I would write to him after Thaddeus left for Africa. He owned the postal box my letters were sent to, and he’d tell me what Thaddeus was up to every now and then.” His eyes didn’t leave the letter for a second. “I haven’t heard from him in months. Not since...” Peter trailed off and glanced sideways at Iris. “Oh, never mind. You wouldn’t know.”

Iris stared at him, her eyes looking glassy, curious but full of trepidation. For a moment, he considered explaining to her, but the bright red _URGENT_ under his fingers reminded him that there were more pressing matters at hand. Still, she asked, “Are you going to read it?”

As an answer, Peter tore the edge off of the envelope and roughly removed the parchment letter folded up inside. He unfolded it to find that the message ran a few pages long, written out in Babclock’s messy, scrawling hand. His eyes scanned over the message, and the more he heard, the more tense and twisted the air in the room became.

_Dear Peter Walter,_

_I realize that it has been several months since we have last communicated, and I apologize for the unexpected nature of this message, but I simply could not risk waiting to be re-acquainted with you. I come to you with urgent and unfortunate news concerning your friend, Thaddeus Becile._

Peter paused as he came across the name. _He isn’t my friend_ , he thought bitterly before he continued.

_In the time since Thaddeus has come to my mines in Africa to excavate green matter, a rift has developed between the two of us. Believe me when I tell you that he is far different from he was when he first arrived. I am writing you this letter to request your help. Thaddeus has become obsessive and violent in his activities, and I am in desperate need of assistance from someone who has more experience with his behaviors than I do._

“What is it?” Iris timidly asked.

“Something’s happened with Thaddeus,” Peter replied. “Something bad.” One glance at Iris told him that she didn’t have the foggiest idea who he was referring to, but right then he didn’t have the resolve to explain. Instead, he continued to read the letter out loud.

“Thaddeus has continued to experiment with green matter at an unprecedented pace. In his time here, he has created a large number of machines powered by this substance in an effort to gain a greater understanding of its properties and more ability to harness its power in different ways. However, his demands for rock candy have become more than my mines can reasonably supply him with. Already my workforce is digging tirelessly, and I cannot force them to push themselves any further without risking a labor strike, the collapse of my business and possibly losing my own life. Despite this, Thaddeus refuses to lift his demands and has continued to pressure me for more rock candy. His requests have become increasingly threatening as of late, and with the number of machines he has created, I fear that he may turn towards brutality to get what he desires. For this reason, I am coming to you with the request that you travel to Africa and join forces with me. You of all people might be able to-”

Peter couldn’t force himself to read any further. He tore his eyes away from the rest of the message and crumpled up the letter in his hand. An angry scoff escaped his lungs, and he crossed his arms over his chest to stare fixedly at the floor. Beside him, Iris spoke up in her usual shy, tentative voice. “W-what did he want?”

At that, Peter threw the crumpled letter to the floor, causing Iris to gasp and take a startled step back. “He wants me to talk sense into him,” he seethed. “The godforsaken idiot wants me to talk sense into him!”

“W-what?”

Peter knew that Iris didn’t understand, but he kept talking anyway. “Thaddeus won’t listen to me. He wouldn’t listen to Taggart, for Christ’s sake, and _he’s_ done nothing to him! What in the blazes makes him think that he’ll listen to me?”

“But...”

The sound of the maid’s voice dragged his attention from the chaos in his head to her, standing just a few feet away, looking just as surprised as he felt and even more frightened. “But what?” he hissed.

Iris shrank back, her quivering hands twisting at one another in front of her heart. “W-why wouldn’t he listen to you?” she squeaked. “H-he’s your friend... isn’t he?”

Slowly, the adrenaline that pulsed in Peter’s veins began to lose its potency, and he saw what he’d done. He’d confused her, and now she was frightened. He felt the familiar burning of shame in his throat, and he turned away from her, looking instead at the letter he had cast aside.

“Not anymore,” he said coldly. With that, he walked off and disappeared into the kitchen, stepping on the letter and grinding it into the floor as he did.

* * *

Hours later, Johona met him in his study. She’d had an inkling that something was wrong when Iris hadn’t shown up in the kitchen that evening. Peter hadn’t said much about it, just in case the maid happened to be listening to them. The news he had in store was nothing good, and he knew Johona’s reactions could be unpredictable at times. If he riled her up, there was no telling what could happen.

Iris seemed traumatized enough from seeing him angry once. He didn’t want to risk accidentally taking out his emotions on her a second time. Apparently, neither did she, since she took a small share of Johona’s cooking from the stove and disappeared to eat it elsewhere.

“Before we discuss anything,” Johona began, “I want to know what happened to Iris.”

“Nothing happened to Iris,” Peter flatly replied. “I just got angry and lashed out a little.”

“And did what?”

“Nothing! I shouted a bit, and I threw a letter to the floor, and that was it.” He curled up defensively in his office chair while Johona looked down at him from her perch on his desk. “Really, Johona. What kind of savage do you think I am?”

His friend seemed skeptical, but she nodded. “On to the next question, then. What was the letter from Babclock about?”

“It’s Thaddeus. He’s become dangerous.”

Johona seemed shocked. “Dangerous how?”

“He’s become aggressive,” Peter said sharply, wasting no time in his answer. “Apparently, because of him, everything is at risk now. The miners. The mines. The corporation. Even Taggart himself. Thaddeus keeps demanding more rock candy for his green matter experiments, Taggart’s mines can’t keep up with him, Thaddeus isn’t willing to compromise, and he’s started making threats. Apparently, not even Taggart can reason with him anymore.”

“Becile is threatening Babclock? With what?”

“I don’t know. In his letter, he mentioned machines. Never specified what those were, but he’s worried about them. He seems to think Thaddeus might be planning on using them against him.”

“You know he always had an interest in weapons.”

Peter’s head stalled for a moment, as if it couldn’t process the deductions it was trying to make. “Do you think that all this time he’s been out there building war machines?”

“No way to know for sure without asking Babclock,” Johona said solemnly, “but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

For what felt like an eternity, neither of them spoke. A thick, heavy tension pervaded the study, amplified by the silence and stifling the possibility of further conversation. When one of them finally found the will to speak up, it was Johona asking, “So why did he come to you?”

“Evidently, he doesn’t realize that Thaddeus and I aren’t friendly anymore,” Peter snipped. “He wants me to travel out there and reason with him.”

“You can’t.”

Neither of them had needed to hear it stated, but Johona said it anyway. Hearing it was like a massive nail being driven into Peter’s chest. He already knew that he couldn’t. Thaddeus was even less likely to hear him out than he was for Taggart, and his input might only make the situation worse. He’d seen his old friend fly into a rage at his hands before, and it was not a pleasant sight. It would be even less pleasant with an undetermined number of war machines at his disposal. As if that weren’t enough, there were other things to worry about as well.

“I’m aware of that,” Peter murmured in reply, one hand instinctively drifting to rest on his belly.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“For now, nothing.”

“Nothing?” Johona was obviously displeased with his answer.

“If threats are all that Taggart’s got to deal with right now, I think he can manage on his own,” he explained. He turned away from his friend and stared numbly at the wall. “I’m the last thing he needs if he’s trying to convince Thaddeus to calm down and take back his demands. He can talk him down without me. If it ever becomes serious and Thaddeus actually makes good on his threats, he’ll send more letters and I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“So you’re telling me that if Thaddeus starts hurting people, you would be willing to drag yourself overseas and comply with him?”

“I’m not saying anything, right now. But if that’s what it comes to...”

“If you wait this out and Thaddeus becomes violent, it’ll only become more difficult.”

“But it hasn’t yet. And I’m counting on Taggart to make sure it stays that way.”

“Are you going to write back to him?”

“No. He’s an intelligent man. Without a response, he should know what my answer is.”

He risked a glance back at Johona and saw that her face had become just as stoic as his. They both knew the real reason why he couldn’t go. As the unspoken explanation hovered in the air between them, one of the reasons moved, causing a chill to run down Peter’s spine. He pressed his fingers against his swollen abdomen, trying to calm the fidgeting creature. He knew what Johona had really meant when she said that waiting would make things more difficult. He didn’t need her to tell him that his predicament had already become almost too obvious to hide.

All the same, she sighed and looked at him with soft, worrisome eyes. “Even if you did manage to keep it secret,” she said, “if you were to go out there to help him, your life wouldn’t be the only one at risk.”

As she spoke, Peter looked down at himself, his heart heavy in his chest. “Yes,” he listlessly responded. “I know.”

* * *

At some unspeakable hour of the night, Peter found himself lying in bed in a half-comatose state, not entirely sure if he was dreaming or awake. If it was a dream, it was the most boring one that his mind had concocted in quite some time. He saw nothing but his bedroom ceiling and the thin ribbons of starlight that slipped through the curtains. The room was hot, too much so for his comfort, and the edge of his bedcovers had been pushed down to his waist. He had no energy to move, but he found his hands twitching on the blanket every few minutes, as if it needed to be proven that he really was as restless as he felt.

As he lay there, neither sleeping nor awake, the memory of Taggart Babclock’s letter swam in distressing circles inside his head. He wished it had gotten lost in the mail. With his life already being the maelstrom of chaos that it was, hearing of another tragedy was the exact opposite of what he needed.

And why had Taggart decided to contact him, anyway? He must have known what had happened between him and Thaddeus. Their friendship had been crumbling for some time before he had shipped himself off to Africa. Even though he asked for information about his activities on occasion, it had only been for the first few months, before he heard that Delilah had fallen ill. He hadn’t written to Babclock in ages. What was he thinking, sending him a letter now?

 _He doesn’t deserve a response_ , Peter thought, his mind too foggy to control his own spite. _He knows that I don’t speak to Thaddeus anymore. He knows I would be useless. He shouldn’t have even sent that damned letter in the first place._

His eyes narrowed as they stared up at the ceiling. He’d never known Taggart to be so stupid. Anger burned in his core, searing his insides. The cosmos must have been having so much fun, torturing him like this. First he’d fallen in with shameful habits, then his body was hijacked, and now the man who used to be his closest friend was threatening to destroy an entire company and here he was, trapped in his home, unable to leave for fear of the judgment he would face in the outside world.

But as the smoldering reached a crescendo, he had another thought. Taggart must have known what was going on between him and Thaddeus. But maybe he wasn’t just sending letters out of stupidity. If he was going to Peter for help, he must have been truly desperate. Momentarily, the bitterness in his veins cooled. It was then that Peter realized that it wasn’t just anger that he felt burning in his stomach.

All of a sudden, the room seemed even hotter than it was before. He was breathing too heavily, and the sheet and pillowcase underneath him were damp with sweat. Panting, he wriggled his way out from under the covers and kicked them away, trying to find some relief from the suffocating heat, only to find that this didn’t make a single difference.

It wasn’t the room that was too warm. The burning was coming from _inside of him_.

Peter’s heart began to throb with panic. He frantically scrambled to prop himself up against the pillows behind his head in a sorry attempt at sitting up, but a sudden, intense pain that lanced through his body kept him flat on his back. He craned his neck to look down at his stomach. The heat seemed to all be radiating from there.

What he saw was nothing he hadn’t come to expect. The faint blue glow emitted from under his skin, lighting up the dim outlines of the bedsheet and the blankets that lay crumpled around his feet. He risked bringing his hand close to his belly to see if it was really the source of all the discomfort. Tentatively, he allowed his fingers to graze the surface of his skin, only to gasp in surprise and pull them away again. His body was searing hot, and his hand felt like he had just laid it onto a sheet of freshly welded metal. He was burning up inside, and he couldn’t begin to guess why.

He couldn’t, because another sudden wave of pain kept him from thinking. This one was longer, far more agonizing than the last. Peter threw back his head and let out a strangled cry, his back arching reflexively against the sheets. He panted as he slowly came down from the adrenaline rush that it had given him, inching himself up towards the pillows to try and get a better look at himself. If he wasn’t mistaken, he seemed to be glowing brighter than before, but he only had enough time for a quick glance before the next wave came.

This one was even worse than the second, sending him reeling back against the pillows, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. One hand was clenched into a fist and pressed to his open mouth, his teeth digging into his own skin as he struggled to keep down the screams that threatened to escape his throat. His body was on fire. He felt as if he had swallowed hot coals or melted silver, his organs being scorched and liquified, all at the mercy of whatever horrors were happening inside of him.

His eyes began to water as he lay there, writhing in pain, unable to move, unable to breathe, gasping and panting and choking back his own screams.The light in his abdomen had begun to pulse, glowing brighter and then dull at fast, dizzying intervals. Peter heard his own heart thrumming along to the rhythm of the lights, quickened by fear. He was dying. He just knew it. The creatures inside him had poisoned him or damaged him or done something else that he couldn’t imagine, and now they were destroying his organs, melting them like soldering metal until there was nothing in his body cavities but a visceral slurry, the gory remains of what once had been keeping him alive.

Then, in the middle of it all, the twins began to move. Peter felt it as the familiar flutter at first, barely tangible against the unbearable burning in his guts, but it quickly grew stronger. More urgent. The heat had woken them up, and now they were kicking incessantly, spurred into frantic action by some unknown force. They were in the middle of it, he realized. They were distressed, maybe even in pain.

Suddenly it hit him; as much as this was killing him, it might be killing the two of them as well.

As the thought crossed his mind, tears began to stream down Peter’s face. Fear and anxiety began to cave in towards him from all sides. _Oh, god_ , he thought despairingly. _Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god, no._

Everything in his mind had gone blank except for them. All he could think of was the two infant life forms in his belly, their frantic squirming, and the fire that still burned him from the inside out. _Not them_ , he begged no one in particular. _Please, not them_.

As if of their own will, his hands reached for his midsection and spread themselves protectively over the swell of his abdomen. His palms were searing against his skin. He didn’t have to cover up his cries anymore, since he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to scream, only to gasp and whimper helplessly at the empty space of his room. His hands were clutching his stomach for dear life, cheeks were slick with tears, the skin of his palms about to peel away from his hands, his collapsing chest ready to make one last, desperate effort to force a scream from his throat...

And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.

The heat began to die down. The light started to dim again, and the waves of pain became duller and duller until Peter could barely feel them at all. As it slowly wore off, he lay deathly still, staring up at the ceiling with eyes now raw and tired. His panting edged off into slow, labored breaths, and he blinked the last of the tears away from his eyes. He felt that his hands were still resting on his belly. Though the fire was gone, the twins continued to squirm underneath his splayed fingers. For a moment, he simply stared at the glowing swell, unsure what to do. But he understood that they were just as frightened as he had been.

They needed him. They had to know that he was still there, that he was still alive. So he did the only thing that would come to mind, and without thinking, he started to shush them.

His hands hovered over his stomach, fingers stroking gently across his skin, as he continued whispering to the twins, as if they were there in front of him, frightened and shaken but still listening. That seemed to calm them, and as his heart slowed, so did their frenzied kicking.

“Shhhh. It’s okay,” he whispered. He wasn’t sure if he was telling them, or telling himself. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

It went on for several minutes. Peter wasn’t sure how long. He didn’t care, though, and didn’t stop for even a second. Something in him didn’t want to, not even after the twins’ thrashing had subsided into calm, lazy stirrings. With the burning sensation and crippling pain gone, Peter finally felt he could move again. He shifted his numb, heavy body over to the other side of the bed and curled up on his side. It was a little easier to fall asleep that way, even when one twin or the other didn’t want to stay still.

It took another few minutes of shifting to get comfortable. Peter let out a sigh when he finally settled down. His eyes felt tired and raw, so he let them fall closed. He knew that he should have been questioning what had just happened to him, or gone to Johona for help at the very least, but he simply didn’t have the energy anymore. He was already deprived of sleep when the strange episode had begun, and what little vitality he might have had was completely spent, thanks to the convulsions.

The twins shifted a little more as he started to drift off, taking a little longer than their host to get comfortable around one another. He felt his stomach flutter with every movement, and his heart did the same. He didn’t question it, only opened his eyes a slit to look down at the bluish glow that emanated from his body. It was a little brighter now, if he wasn’t mistaken. And he might have been, because a second later, he was dead asleep.

* * *

 

Iris was scarce in the days that followed the arrival of Babclock’s letter. Peter found it a little disconcerting, since he’d become so used to her presence in the house. Where she had once stuck close to him whenever he was within reach, now he was alone at almost all the time, even when he wasn’t in his lab. And he had invited her into the lab on a few occasions. Usually it was because it had to be cleaned just like any other room in the house, but also because he thought she might like to see what he’d been working on. His second automaton was nearing completion, his face plates having already been cast and his limbs in working condition. Iris had seemed to enjoy listening to him when he explained his creations. But those moments now seemed long gone.

He brought the subject up with Johona when he finally remembered to talk to her about what had happened the night after he received the letter from Africa. She said she understood his concerns, and he believed that she did, in a general sense, but at the same time, his thoughts on Iris seemed to irritate her a little. The way she voiced it was, “You were close to death two nights ago, and _this_ is what you’re worried about?”

“It’s not the only thing,” he clarified. “That’s why I’m talking to you.”

“Then can we focus on one problem at a time?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll drop the subject for a while.”

“Good. Now...” Johona’s expression schooled itself into one of stern professionality. “This episode you had. This... what exactly would you call it?”

“I don’t know what to call it.”

“Then we’ll just continue calling it an episode. Could you describe it to me again?”

“It’s kind of difficult. All I remember is that for a few minutes, everything was horrible. I was in the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. Like I was being burned alive from the inside out.”

“And you think it might have affected the twins?”

“They were thrashing like no tomorrow after it happened, so if anything they must have at least felt it,” he explained. He looked at Johona, searching her face for some hint that she might know what was going on, but her pensive expression told him nothing. After a few tense seconds, he gave up on estimating and asked, “This isn’t something that other people experience, is it?”

“It shouldn’t be,” she bewilderedly replied. “Women will sometimes experience cramps or stretching pains, but I’ve never heard of anything even nearly as bad as what you’re describing. Usually pains of this severity are attributed to miscarriage, but both you and the babies seem perfectly fine. And you’ve barely even gone five months. It’s far too early for you be going into labor.”

Peter cringed a little at the mention of labor and tried to move on. “If there isn’t any medical explanation you’ve learned about, then can’t you make a guess? It doesn’t matter how wild. Even a loose hypothesis would help.”

“Well...” Johona bit her lip and tapped her fingers on the parlor table, deep in thought. “All I can imagine is your body trying to reject the embryos, but judging by the results we were met with when we tried to abort them, it isn’t likely that was the case.”

The answer wasn’t any comfort to Peter. It left him just as confused as he was before, if not more so. Resignedly, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe you’re right. There might not be a real explanation. There sure as hell isn’t one for the rest of this situation, either.”

A tired little smirk tugged at his friend’s lips. “You can say that again.”

“I was half-asleep when it happened as it was. Who’s to say that it wasn’t all a dream?”

“An excellent point.”

“If it was, it felt extraordinarily real.”

“Most dreams don’t hurt nearly that much.”

“Do you think we should tell Iris about this?”

At the mention of the maid, a look of exasperation crossed Johona’s face. “I think that’s something you should decide for yourself.”

“If I don’t, are you going to say anything?”

“I’m not planning on it.”

Peter thought for a moment longer. “If this doesn’t become a common occurrence, then I don’t see why she needs to know,” he said. “She has enough to worry about as it is. Even if I tried to tell her, I don’t know that she would be willing to talk to me.”

“Are we _really_ going back to this?”

“It worries me. Weren’t _you_ the one who wanted me to be more open about my feelings?”

“Touché,” she grumbled in surrender. “So tell me. What _are_ you feeling?”

“Other than concern, not very much,” he explained. “It just isn’t like her to be so detached. Ever since I received that letter, I feel like she’s been hiding from me.”

“Are you sure you didn’t do anything to her that night?”

Peter fixed his friend with a deadened stare. “We’ve been over this, Johona.” For a short time, neither of them spoke, and the quiet gave Peter a chance to think. Maybe it wasn’t like Iris to be keeping her distance, but... “She always has been very reactive,” he said. “It’s made me wonder before.”

“Is this the first time she’s seen you angry?”

The suggestion lit up Peter’s brain like a kerosene lamp. He hadn’t thought of that before, but now that Johona had mentioned it, he was dumbstruck as to why he hadn’t thought of it before. “Y-yes, I believe it is,” he murmured in mild amazement.

Johona’s eyebrows rose, as if she’d just had an epiphany of her own. “Maybe you should seek her out and talk to her. Even if she’s avoiding you, she won’t ignore you if you at least make an attempt.”

“And on the off chance she is willing to speak with me, what am I going to tell her?”

The only answer that he got was a shrug. “I can’t really dictate for you. Whatever happened between the two of you, it’s down to you to fix it,” his friend replied. “Although I do suggest that you be honest with her, for once.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Peter shot defensively back at her.

“Listen, Walter. I know it’s hardly my business to be meddling in your personal affairs, especially after having been apart for so long, but I get the impression that your housekeeping staff isn’t all that knowledgeable about you, beyond what they can see from the surface.” When she was met with silence instead of another offended question or smart reply, Johona went on and asked, “How much does Iris know about you and Thaddeus?”

Peter sighed, embarrassment sticking like a pin in the back of his mind. “Hardly anything. Miriam’s staff... they know what I do for a living, and they know where I came from, but beyond that, there’s nothing.”

It wasn’t until now that he lost sight of his reasons to keep such details a secret. They barely meant anything, now that he thought about it. He had a friend who’d turned on him and was in love with a dead woman. And how would that change how the maids saw him? Surely they served other people who had suffered similar tragedies, possibly even some who had suffered worse. They wouldn’t have been interested in knowing the gory details, he was sure. As much as Miriam’s maids liked to talk and listen, they had decent professional boundaries.

“Then why don’t you start there?” Johona suggested. “That rivalry is where all of these problems stemmed from, after all. It’ll only make things easier if she knows.

Peter nodded and stood up from his chair. “You’re right,” he said. “Maybe I will. Then he turned and ventured out of the parlor to find Iris.

* * *

 

Peter hated her now. Iris just knew that he did.

It hadn’t taken much saying. She saw it in his eyes every time they accidentally met with hers, in the emotionless tone he used to speak to her, in the very fact of his absence from her life. Something had gone wrong the night he received that letter from Mr. Babclock... no, the night that she told him how she really felt about his situation... no, the night both these things happened at once, and she hadn’t done a single thing but trip over her own ineptitudes as his nerves were worn down. Now he hated her, and she was deathly afraid of what would come next.

As much as it pained her, she didn’t want to try and intervene in her fate. What was done was done, and she didn’t dare make an attempt to fix things. She was sure that she could only make them worse. Peter Walter was an introverted man, and he didn’t like sharing an excess of personal information. That much she had gathered from their short interview in his study so many weeks before.

While she stood on a stool in the spacious backyard and pinned clothing up on the lines, she found herself feeling empty. She didn’t have to think very long or hard to know that she missed him.

Iris silently scolded herself, her hands taking on an emotionally-charged vigor. She must have been a truly soft, stupid girl to have become accustomed to Peter so quickly. Seeing him every day had made her even more delusional than she had been when she was still a visiting maid. In the weeks she had spent at the manor, her imagination had become more vile than ever. It verged on criminal, thinking of him the way that she did. That didn’t even take into account the things she _did_ when he occupied her thoughts.

A clothespin spring pinched closed on Iris’s finger, and she squeaked in surprise before promptly shaking her head clear and berating herself a second time. There she went again, envisioning the impossible and letting it distract her from the truth. She had to know her place. He wanted nothing to do with her.

She’d been pushing his limits far enough, being as lenient as she was with her need to be close to him. He’d been sympathetic in return, letting her live in his home, eat at his table, speak to his friend and even inviting her into his lab from time to time. But she knew that his kindness could only go so far. Peter had limits. All men did, and she needed to be especially careful if she wanted to keep her job. So why did she think that she had any right to think of him the way she did? What made her think that his kind gestures were anything more than common courtesy? Why did she find so much joy in the impending birth of children that weren’t even hers?

And his name. _Peter_. Why had he asked her to call him that?

Before she could think on it, she heard the back door creak open and someone step out onto the porch. Iris went stock-still and turned her head toward the house just in time to catch a flash of blue before a bedsheet flapped in the wind and hid it from sight. She quickly returned to her task at hand, trying to look as though she hadn’t been distracted. Her heart began to pound, and her fingers trembled as they strung pins along the clothesline.

 _He found me_ , her mind was screaming. _He found me, and now I’ll finally get what I deserve._

* * *

 “Iris?”

The maid stood a short distance away. At the sound of her name, she jumped in surprise and her head whipped around to face him. A clothespin slipped from her hand and hit the grass. “O-oh, M-Mis... uh, Peter,” she stammered.

“Did I startle you?”

“A-a little bit, yes,” she unsteadily replied. She quickly crouched down to retrieve the clothespin she’d dropped. “I-I am terribly sorry.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Sorry about what?”

“A-about... um...” She looked at the clothespin, as if that held the answer. “N-never mind,” she mumbled, quickly turning her attention back to her work.

Something wasn’t right, although Peter couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He could tell that Iris was troubled, but he could only guess what the reason was. Cautiously, he came a few steps closer and bent to take up a few pins from the laundry basket. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Iris glanced over at him, looking surprised as she always did whenever she saw him do anything on his own. Peter thought he saw a hint of something else as well, but she had turned her head away again before he could figure out what it was. “N-not at all. Of course,” she said.

For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Peter hung up a few pieces with the handful of clothespins he had taken. Once they ran out, he took a breath and turned to Iris again. “Iris, I came out here for a reason,” he began. “Although working with you is rather nice, really, I, um... I wanted to talk to you about something.”

At that, Iris froze. Her hands stilled on the pin she was fastening. Slowly, as if there were lead in her veins, she set the pin in place and let her hands down to her sides. She turned her head a little in his direction, barely enough for him to see a single brown eye past the cloud of her wild curls. “What is it?” she timidly asked.

“It’s about what happened a few nights ago.”

Suddenly, the maid had spun around completely, looking at him face-to-face with huge, almost frightened eyes. “M-Mr. Walter, if- Peter, i-if this is about what I said...”

“Iris,” he tried to cut in, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

“I-it didn’t mean anything, I promise. I-I know how hard things have been for you, and...”

“Iris, let me explain,” he said, a little louder this time.

“And I have no right to be happy it. I’m just a maid, and my feelings don’t mean anythi-”

“Iris!”

Peter’s voice rang clear in the dry afternoon heat, and Iris flinched at the sound of it. She let out a shrill, startled yelp, and suddenly she was half a step further away from him, her eyes squeezed shut, her body curled in on itself and her hands held up in front of her face. For a moment, Peter simply stared at her, unsure what to do. Then, slowly, her eyes fluttered open, stared first at the ground, then gradually moved up and found his again. She remained rigid, though, and it didn’t seem right at all.

“Iris, are you alright?” he asked softly, but nothing he said could coax an answer from her. Iris still didn’t move, and the more he observed, the more it sank in. She looked as though she had expected him to hit her. The way she was shaking, maybe she thought that he already had.

Tentatively, Peter reached out and eased Iris’s hands away from her face. She complied with his touch, like wet clay in his hands, and moved wherever he decided to place her. When he let go, she straightened up and steadied her shallow breathing. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “It’s... it’s a nervous habit.”

“Are you saying I make you nervous?” Peter asked suspiciously.

“W-well, you’re my employer. I need to please you with my performance. Don’t you think that I should be nervous?”

“Not so nervous that you’re walking on eggshells whenever I’m around,” he said. Iris stared at him as she listened, seeming to hear what he said as if it were spoken in a foreign language. He felt a familiar dryness in his throat, and he found himself wondering again at what exactly Iris’s life had been like before he’d come to know her. “Why do you think that it’s necessary to be as careful as you are?”

“I-I have to be professional, don’t I?” the maid timidly offered. “I... I work for you. I serve, and I do what you tell me to. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?”

“In the most general sense, yes, but...” Peter didn’t know how to finish the thought. He took Iris’s hands in his, holding them gently between them where they both could see. “Iris, is there anything you’d like to tell me? Anything about you that I should know? It doesn’t matter what it is. I will listen.”

The maid shook her head. “Peter, I’m really not a very interesting person.”

“I don’t care if it’s interesting or not, I only... I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Iris.”

“Y-you think that I’m...” she bewilderedly stammered.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been making assumptions about you that aren’t true,” he went on, “but sometimes the way you act concerns me. I need to know that you’re comfortable working here. If you aren’t, there won’t be any repercussions for you telling me how you really feel.”

At his suggestion, Iris grew tense. “B-but I am comfortable here,” she insisted. “I’m happy to work for you. I really am. I-I only want to do well.”

He stared at her a moment after she spoke, watching for some sign of life, a minute change in her facial expression, a muscle twitch or blink of an eye or anything to tip him off to some deeper truth. Nothing changed that he could see, no matter how long or hard he looked, so he sighed and offered her a tired smile. “That’s all anyone ever really wants to do, I suppose,” he said, then squeezed Iris’s hands once before letting go. “But just know, if there’s anything you ever want to tell me, don’t hesitate.”

“I won’t, Peter.”

“Good.” He glanced at the basket, which was still half-full with laundry, and figured that he and Iris had a little more time to kill. It seemed to be a good day of lengthy explanations. “Since I’m here, I think it’s only right that I fill you in on what’s going on.”

Iris paused in her work and glanced at him past her curls again. “What _is_ going on?” she echoed back to him.

“The letter from Taggart Babclock,” he elucidated. “You don’t even know who he is. Or Thaddeus, or anyone else for that matter. Isn’t that the case?”

She looked ashamed for not knowing, but she nodded her affirmation.

“You don’t have to look like that, Iris. It isn’t like I was expecting any other answer from you. I’m well aware of how little I’ve actually told you.”

“Y-you didn’t need to tell me,” the maid stuttered. “You still don’t, if that isn’t what you want. I-I’m only here to...” She trailed off and never finished, only looked earnestly at Peter. He could tell she wanted to hear what he had to say, but was afraid to go about asking any prying questions.

“It’s only fair,” he insisted. “If I get another letter from Taggart, or anything else happens to set me off again, I don’t want you to scare you like I did a few nights ago. If you’re going to live in the same house as me, there are a few things about my past that you have a right to know.”

Iris kept to her work as she spoke, her hands fast and efficient, but she looked over at him every few seconds, attentiveness never once fading from her eyes. _Go on_ , she seemed to be saying.

Peter took a breath before speaking again. “To be honest, I have very little idea of where to start,” he said. “I suppose that I should go back to the days when I was part of the Cavalcadium. I’ve told you about that place before, haven’t I?” Iris nodded, and he went on. “Well, I made a lot of friends through the organization, and one... one of the _closest_ I had was a man named Thaddeus Becile.”

When he paused, she chimed in to ask, “Was that the same Thaddeus that Mr. Babclock wrote to you about?”

“The very same,” he grimly replied.

“What happened to him?”

“A better question would be what happened to the whole Cavalcadium,” Peter continued in a sardonic tone. “It all started when the two of us started fighting over... Christ, it seems so stupid now... we were fighting over _a girl_. Her name was Delilah, and... and we were both completely loony for her, along with half the Cavalcadium. It was just a little friendly competition when it started, flirting with her and making each other jealous, but then it became serious, far too serious than the cause could really merit.” It hurt to talk about Delilah this way, but Peter knew he had to. He had been clinging to her for so long, and recent events had put things jarringly into perspective.

“We started building machines to impress her. Colossal robotic beasts made to look like her favorite animals, and the automaton band. Suddenly, everything we did was to impress her. Thaddeus tried to alter one of his creations- attaching a gramophone to a mechanical elephant, of all things- just to gain an edge over me, but he tried to show her before it was finished and the demonstration went terribly wrong. He damaged the Cavalcadium center, and hurt so many people... We all voted to excommunicate him after that.”

“And was that when...”

“No. We had been fighting long before that. But things only became worse after he left. Then there was the accident, the one that destroyed the Cavalcadium for good. I lost contact with almost every friend I had. Thaddeus left to Africa to mine for green matter. That’s a substance derived from rock candy. A powerful energy source, highly radioactive. Taggart mentioned it in his letter.”

“Well, last I heard from him, that was what he used to power his creations. According to Taggart, that’s what he’s been up to all this time: continuing his research and finding new ways to harness it. That’s the story of what split us up, and the reason why I was so angry about the letter. I know Taggart meant well in asking me for help, but he knows what happened between Thaddeus and me. Aside from the fact that I simply can’t go anyplace the way I am, if I were to try and stop Thaddeus, I’d only serve to make him angrier. I hope that all makes sense to you now.”

A few quiet seconds went by, then Iris asked, “And what about you?”

The question took Peter a little by surprise. “What _about_ me?” he repeated. He had very little to do with this. It was Thaddeus that she had needed to hear about, not him.

“How come you bought the manor and set up here?” she elaborated. “Is Thaddeus the reason why you stay here so much of the time? And what about Delilah? If Thaddeus is out in Africa, he can’t get in your way anymore.”

All of a sudden, Earth’s orbit had slowed and Peter had gone deathly still. Iris’s questions stuck a sharp spire of grief into his heart. She didn’t know.

Had he really not told her? Of course he hadn’t. He hadn’t said two words to anyone about Delilah, had barely been able to face what had happened himself. The story wouldn’t make sense without that vital fact remaining. His fingers tightened on the clothesline where he held a sheet in place.The truth clawed at Peter’s throat, wanting to be set free, but his tongue seemed unwilling to cooperate. “I... I can’t.”

Iris turned to him, brightened by an encouraging smile, but he could tell she was struggling to hold it up. There was something undeniably sad about her, almost like she already knew the truth. But she couldn’t have, not if she was so confidently making such a suggestion. “You could just send her a letter, or a telegram, like you did for Johona,” she said, confirming everything that Peter had thought.“It worked out for her, so why not Delilah? You might not have spoken to her in a long time, but I’m sure she’d be happy to see you again.”

Once more, the facts scraped at his mind, but he just couldn’t seem to state them. “I can’t,” he said again. “I just... can’t.”

Iris watched him for another moment, then turned promptly back to the laundry. He should have guessed that she wouldn’t press him for an answer. He hated himself for taking advantage of her nature, but the dark, selfish corners of his soul were thankful that she was so passive. Numbly, he went back to pinning the linens in place. If only to break the tense silence that hung between them, he asked the first question that came to his head. “Did you think that was the kind of story you’d be hearing from me?”

“Not exactly,” she softly replied. “I really didn’t think you would explain anything to me at all.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t leave you hanging the way you were.”

“Thank you for telling me as much as you did.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I was only telling you what you rightfully deserve to know.”

Iris stopped a moment to glance at him, and he saw something incredulous in her gaze. Momentarily she was back to her predetermined task, and tried to carry on talking to her. “I do want to ask about you, though.”

“What is there to ask?” she murmured.

“Anything. I know even less about you than you do about me.” When Iris didn’t respond, he went on. “If you don’t want to talk about your past, that’s fine. I won’t push you.” She glanced at him, but didn’t speak. “Maybe I should be more specific. Um... what _do_ you want to talk about?”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

It was a curious response, but it didn’t change Peter’s mind one bit. “Anything,” he said.

Iris finished pinning a lab coat to the line and looked back at her employer. A nervous exhale escaped her, and he saw her biting her lip in hesitation. Her eyes drifted down from his face as he had seen them do before, coming to rest around his middle before flicking back up to his face. He glanced down at himself, to where his bulging stomach pressed outward against his shirt. A small laugh bubbled up from his lungs, and he looked back up at Iris. “You want to talk about the babies?” he asked.

“If it doesn’t bother you,” she replied.

“It really shouldn’t, at this point. It’s been nearly twenty weeks, and if I can’t discuss them now, I don’t know when I’ll be able to.” He paused to lift a dish towel from the basket. “I never did ask how you felt about them in the first place.”

“It really isn’t important how I feel about them,” Iris said, a significant note of sadness in her voice. “They aren’t mine to bear, or mine to raise. I’ve got no place meddling in what you decide to do with them.”

“But you did say that you were excited by the prospect of there being two,” he recalled. The maid glanced at him, but didn’t say anything more on the subject. She seemed embarrassed to have even said what she did about the news of the twins, and Peter felt a driving need to know why. “Do you remember that conversation we had about taking you on as a resident?” he pressed onward. “When I first told you I was pregnant? You wanted to know if I was going to keep them.”

Iris froze up, her hands tightly clutching a few pins. “I did,” she murmured.

“I was wondering about that for a while.”

“It isn’t that important.”

“It certainly seemed like it was to you,” he said. “What was the reason for that?”

She hesitated before giving her answer. “I-I thought... m-maybe it might have been a good thing if you did.”

“A good thing?” Peter asked. Every answer that Iris gave him seemed to do nothing but spawn more questions in his head. “How?”

“I-I know you weren’t looking to have children...” Iris unsteadily explained. “I-if you ever did, I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted to... f-for it to happen like this. But... but you always just seemed so lonely.”

For a moment, Peter felt his heart melt a little. Of all the answers Iris had given him, why did it have to be this? He thought for a moment of her, not as she stood in front of him, but the little quirks and habits she had developed while she lived with him. He remembered her passing furtive glances at his belly, the wonderment on her face when she had listened to Johona’s stethoscope, the way her eyes had lit up when he told her about the discovery of the twins. There was something more to it than simple convention. There had to be. Emboldened by curiosity, he asked, “If I had said no, would you still have agreed to stay here?”

At that, Iris’s eyes seemed to go dark. Any semblance of confidence was gone from her face. Her hands had become so tense that they trembled. She dropped her gaze to the grass and kept it there, unwilling to meet her employer’s eyes. “Peter...” she murmured weakly, and that was enough to make him understand.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer,” he said. “I was just curious. That’s all.” He took a step forward and put a hand on her elbow. “If you don’t want to discuss this anymore, we can stop.”

Iris cautiously raised her eyes to his again, and a slight smile spread across her face. “Only the subject,” she said. “I like talking to you.”

Peter found himself returning her smile. “I’m glad you do,” he replied.

There was nothing left to be hung up by then. Iris bent to pick up the empty basket and balanced it on her hip. She looked up at Peter again, eyes bright and lips lightly curved. She looked content like that, he thought: outside, skin lit by the mid-August sun, her hair unbound and soft, something to carry in her arms and him standing at her side to observe her in her natural habitat. The image warmed him in a way far more profound than anything that the blistering California afternoon could do.

For once, Iris appeared truly happy. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of him or not, but it would have been nice if it were. It would be one small, significant thing that he had done after ages of next to nothing. Maybe all the months of mourning and anxiety had come out to something positive after all.

Conversing side by side, they returned to the house.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there's a cute ending for you.  
> Holy fuck I forgot how long this chapter was. And of course Taggart is involved. Did you think that just because this can't fit into the canon timeline for shit, he wouldn't be here? Think again.  
> This story might be trash, but at least it's trash with a plot.  
> See you next chapter.


	13. A Rabbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO OVERRAN ANOTHER WEEK'S UPDATE FOR REASONS.  
> Me. It was me.  
> Anyway, today was a pretty good day, so I decided it was probably a decent time to make an update. I went to see Moana and if you haven't then you should. Obviously you're here to listen to my dumb opinions about trivial things. Anyway, my internet keeps sporadically fucking itself and I have no idea why. I've restarted it twice and it has changed nothing. Let's just hope that it holds out long enough for me to post this chapter.  
> I am very distracted right now.  
> Ugh. None of this is significant.  
> Might as well get on with the usual notes. Thanks to some friends I've mentioned before (volatileSoloiste, cicada_s, Feep from ff.net and now TheWhimsicalBard has joined the fray) for putting up with me and my excitement about dumb things and reading this hellspawn of a fanfiction. Please leave kudos and comments and shitposts wherever your preferred platform is. Just remember to tag them with blacklisted tags (ie. Sexpg) and the ones I listed in other author notes (fic: alaout, fic: artificial life, and others that I'm probably forgetting).  
> Wow. So much stuff happened in the last few chapters and this one in particular is kind of a lull.  
> Gonna warn you ahead of time that there are quite a few of these.

 

The lab was a tranquil sort of place for Iris. Such peace had always been a rare thing in her life. She was a proactive person, seemingly unable to rest, never having free time if only because she always found some form of work to fill it. That was to say, unless something else came up, like the days when Peter invited her into the lab when work was slow. For those opportunities, Iris would just about drop anything and everything in order to join him.

In the past two weeks, her employer had made a habit of allowing her to watch him work whenever it seemed there was nothing imperative to be done in the house. With Iris there to attend to things at all hours of the day, even routine cleaning had been steadily losing its urgency. So she had been invited to the lab far more often than before.

In contrast with her usual activity, Iris did very little when she was there. At times, Peter gave her some small task to assist him, like holding pieces in place or handing him tools, or she would find one for herself. But more than anything, it seemed that her purpose in the lab was simply to stay close to him and make conversation while he worked. That was exactly what she had been doing for the latter part of the day.

“Are you planning on having all three of them finished at the same time?” she asked, watching with rapt interest as he installed wiring in the delicate joints of the second automaton’s long, slender fingers.

Peter knitted his eyebrows, deep in thought at the question. “I can’t be sure, really,” he said equivocally, not taking his eyes off his handiwork. “I’ll have to see how their construction pans out. With projects as complicated as this one, there are always a lot of revisions to be made.”

Iris glanced over at the automaton that she had first seen in the lab, having observed it in its various stages of completion. It had been some time since she had seen any change in its appearance. “Revision... is that the stage that one is in?”

“Her?” Peter glanced briefly up from his current project to look at the other slab. “I suppose you could say that.”

“What about her needs to be improved?” she went on. “Is there something wrong with her? Does she need to be corrected?”

Her employer sighed, and she saw his fingers tighten a little on the precision tools that he held. “She’s a bit of a special case,” he said tersely, and Iris recognized her cue not to press him any further.

She had learned a lot about Peter in the time she’d spent working with him. Nearly two months had passed since she had first moved into the manor. From their mere proximity, she was able to observe him in a greater depth than ever before. Finally, she felt she had begun to understand him. If anything, she had picked up on his habits, his small quirks and proclivities that were so endlessly fascinating.

Peter was very casual and unpretentious for someone of his standing, she had found. When she watched them closely, she found that he talked to her in almost the same manner that he used when he talked to Johona. He tried as hard as he could to be self-sufficient, but at the same time, was still a mad scientist at heart and wasn’t always the most practical, which was probably why a maid’s services were so necessary to him in the first place. He was a little awkward, though not so much as herself, and had an almost comical obsession with horror and science fiction. He liked to read out loud sometimes, if there was anyone willing to listen. Most important to her, in all the time that Iris had spent at the manor, his kindness towards her had never waned. He remained amiable, smiled at her when their eyes met, and made a surprising effort not to order her around, even though she was being paid to be his servant.

But even more important than that, she had come to find that he was extremely sensitive. There were a few things about him that she had come to recognize whenever certain subjects were mentioned. She’d learned to take them as warning signs, and to stay away from whatever words or actions stirred them up. In spite of all the learning she had done, there was still so much about him that she didn’t know. It didn’t help matters that she was afraid to ask. She knew that Peter could be cold, even impulsive when he was upset, and she was sure that the fact that he was just over 22 weeks along didn’t help matters very much. Her employer in an emotional state was something she wanted to avoid at all costs. If his peace of mind came at the cost of there being details about him that she could never know, then ignorance would be a price she would simply have to pay. She would rather he be happy than to know absolutely everything about him.

This in mind, she left behind the subject of the unfinished automaton and quickly found something to move on to. “How do you make details this small?”

“It’s the right tools and magnifier goggles, mostly,” Peter replied. “I didn’t want to be like Frankenstein and create something massive. The armature is on the large side for a human as it is, and I don’t think it would be fitting to make it any larger. They’re supposed to be charismatic, not threatening.”

“So you’re building them to have a personality that’s... larger than life?”

Peter’s hands stopped their work, and he snorted a little and looked up at Iris through his fish-eyed goggles. Iris found herself grinning proudly a split second before a smile broke out on his face and a laugh bubbled from his lips. “You must be spending too much time around me. You’ve started making puns.”

Iris’s smile faltered, though it didn’t fade completely. “W-what’s wrong with puns?”

“Nothing, if it’s me you’re asking. It’s only that they annoy nearly everyone I know.”

“Well... they don’t annoy me,” she said benignly. Her fingers twitched on the tabletop. She wanted to put her hand over his as she spoke, but it didn’t seem like a good time. It hardly ever did.

Coincidentally, Peter put his tools down as the thought crossed her mind and looked at her, his goggles magnifying the brightness in his eyes. “I’ve always liked talking to you,” he said.

“You have?” Iris murmured, taken by surprise.

“Yes, whenever you were willing to.”

“Even now?”

“Even now.”

The conversation paused a little as Iris took a nervous second to think. “You’re sure I’m not distracting you?”

“I’ve told you before that I’m not exactly fond of working in total silence,” Peter affirmed. “It makes me get lost inside my own head. My mind starts wandering, and I can never get anything done.” He pushed his goggles up to his forehead, accidentally smearing grease on his face as he always did. “I got used to working with background noise at the Cavalcadium, and I guess I never quite lost my liking for it.”

“That’s good to know,” Iris added. Peter stood up from his work stool as she spoke, and her eyes followed him as he approached the table where the first automaton lay. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to attempt to test something,” he replied. “Would you mind coming here to help me for a moment?”

Immediately, Iris stood up from her seat and joined him. He had opened up the automaton’s rib-like internal chest plate, exposing her core and all the wires that kept her power source attached to the rest of her body. “I’m going to disconnect the core and see if I can use it to test the hand joints. I’ll need a small closed circuit, since there isn’t enough to power a whole machine yet.”

Iris nodded and continued to listen attentively to her instructions. Peter gave her a pair of gloves and told her to hold the core in place as he carefully detached its wires and took it from its holding place. After weeks of trial-and-error to synthesize and capture more blue matter the small glass chamber was just shy of halfway full. By some small miracle, he has been able to gather more of the finicky substance. Its glow was still dull, and it did nothing when attached to the machine in which it really belonged, but it was possible that if its task were something smaller and simpler, the partially filled core might provide sufficient power.

Attaching one mechanism to another was a slow process, since the two were made custom for different machines. Peter still somehow made it work, and in an almost instantaneous reaction, the fingers twitched when the connection was secure. Iris watched in amazement as the joints and synthetic tendons clicked to life, curling in on themselves and stretching out in experimental movements. With every change in position, excitement shined brighter on Peter’s face.

“It worked,” he murmured. He said it again, louder. “It worked! I can’t believe it, it worked!” He looked at Iris, grinning like a fool. “All this time I’d been losing hope, but... look at that! It works!”

“You’ve done it!” Iris returned with just as much enthusiasm. “I knew you could. You’re a genius.”

At her comment, a faint blue blush rose to Peter’s cheeks. He briefly looked away from her and stared at the hand, which seemed to be bending itself into chord placements for the frets of a guitar. “You really think that?” he asked after a moment of stunned silence.

“O-of course I do,” Iris stammered. Her heart flitted in her chest, and all of a sudden she felt as though she had made some foolish slip of the tongue. “I-it isn’t every day that you find someone... someone this dedicated to what they do.”

“Well...” Peter glanced up at her again, looking slightly embarrassed with a flattered smile on his face. “I’m only trying to make a living out of what I know and what I enjoy. Nothing more than what anyone else would want to do with their life.” He made quick work of removing the wires in the automaton’s hand from the core, its skeletal fingers falling limp as he did. Iris carried the core back to the first automaton and Peter followed her with tools in hand. As he walked, she saw him freeze up a little, his eyes widening just slightly behind his magnifier goggles. It lasted only a second before he quickly shook it off and kept walking to meet her at the table. She held the core in place while he reassimilated it into the automaton’s wiring system. Halfway through, he paused again, and she thought she heard his breath hitch a little as his fingers stilled.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s only-” Before he could finish, his breath caught in his throat again and a faint gasp slipped out of his mouth. He tried to keep working on the task at hand, but his focus seemed to be distracted. He gasped again, setting his tools down with a jolt, and a slow smile spread across his face. A soft, subdued laugh bubbled up from his chest.

“Peter?” Iris pressed on. “What is it?”

“It’s...” he began, but the words quickly dissolved into laughter. He stepped back from the slab, one hand braced on the edge, the other pressed to his belly. With a hasty movement, he pulled his goggles off, revealing the squinted eyes of a face drawn into a smile. He kept trying to speak, but he was laughing uncontrollably, doubled over and straining to stay upright. Iris leaned across the table toward him, feeling the slight notion that she should be worried. Chest heaving, Peter finally caught his breath long enough to speak. “I... I’m sorry, it’s just... I’ve never felt them move like this before.”

His words made Iris’s heart leap as he said them, and she felt her face pull into a faint smile that mirrored his. “It’s the twins?”

“Y-yes, they’re...” he tried to say, though he kept getting cut short by his own laughter. “I-I can’t... I-it tickles!” He went on laughing, one hand clutching his stomach. Iris leaned closer to watch him, enraptured with fascination. He managed to open his eyes a little and raised them to meet hers. Iris started a little, realizing she’d been caught staring, but her apprehension melted as a knowing smile spread across his face. Though he still struggled to catch his breath, he steadied himself and asked, “D-do you want to feel it?”

The question struck Iris like lightning. Of course she wanted to. The notion came to mind every time she saw her employer freeze up in the middle of a task, ever since she had first come to recognize what it meant. He was always startled when one of the twins moved suddenly, something she had learned to infer without asking. His outward motions were the only things that tipped her off to his condition, since he rarely spoke about how any of it felt. Ironically enough, that was all Iris wanted to know. She wanted him to describe it to her in detail, maybe even let her touch his steadily growing belly to feel at least a semblance of what he could. If it were possible, she would have been overjoyed to take his place and carry the twins herself, protect and nurture them with her own body, feel each sensation and experience everything as if his children were her own. There was nothing that would have made her happier.

Yes, of course she wanted to feel them move. But she would never have dared to ask.

“Y-you... you would let me...” she stammered.

Peter gazed back at her, still stifling laughter. “I would, if you wanted to,” he said. “And it seems that you do.”

Iris opened her mouth to answer, but words stuck in her throat. She stared mutely at him, her eyes wide with surprise. She could barely believe it, even as he said the words right in front of her. Peter had never given her an invitation to touch his stomach, not since the first time when he had done so only to prove his condition to her. She’d seen Johona try to do it, and she was rarely successful in the times that Iris had seen her make an attempt. Even when she did manage to lay a hand on him, Peter never seemed happy about it. So why would he allow her, when he wouldn’t even let a close friend to do that much?

“Well?” he prompted.

“I... I’d love to,” Iris finally said.

Peter smiled at her answer. “Come here,” he said softly, and Iris quickly obeyed. Just like the first time, he took her hand gently in his. “Right here,” he instructed, and he layered his hand over hers and pressed her palm against the outward curve of his abdomen.

Right away, Iris could feel something shifting under his skin. It was a faint, roiling feeling at first, like waves lapping at a beach. Then she distinctly felt something tap against her palm.

The maid gasped in surprise. She startled and her arm jolted back, pulling her hand away from where it rested. Peter let her go, and it took only a second for her to realize her mistake. She looked up at him, her eyes pleading an unspoken question, and he silently nodded his permission to her. Carefully, she laid her hand over his belly again and waited. Her breath caught as she felt another gentle kick against her palm. In an instant her face was lit up with a smile, and she found herself caught up in the same stupor of giggling that Peter had been in only a few moments before. She placed her other hand on his stomach as well, and he made no move to stop her.

They stood like that for several minutes, Iris feeling each twin move under her palm at intervals, her heart feeling fit to burst. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, something so unique and so wondrous that she had nothing to compare it to. It left her staring at him in speechless awe, her eyes flicking back and forth between his serene face and his swollen belly. She’d never felt anything so powerful yet so soft. It was so beautiful, she wanted to cry. And she would have, if it weren’t Peter that stood directly before her. So she blinked away the burning in her eyes and hoped he couldn’t hear the ecstatic pounding of her heart.

“I think they like you,” he said warmly.

Iris looked up at him, tears thankfully still contained. “Do they?” she asked.

“We can find out,” he replied. “Keep talking.”

“What will that do?”

“If they move when they hear your voice, that means they recognize you.”

“Are you sure that’ll work?”

He shrugged. “Johona told me that it does. Anything I say is just a speculation, really, but I think that if you speak and they respond, it’s got to mean something.”

“Alright,” Iris said. She pondered for a place to start. “Um... I-I don’t know what to say.”

“Then tell me what you’re thinking about right now.”

“Well... I-I really don’t _have_ very much to say.”

“It doesn’t matter if you think it’s worth saying or not. Just whatever happens to be in your head.”

“Okay. I... I think... well, all of _this_ is very exciting,” she unsteadily began, looking down at where her hands rested.

“And?” Peter gently urged her on.

“And... and I never thought I’d be able to do this. I-I mean, I never thought you’d let me feel the two of them move... or even allow me to touch you again. I really thought the first time would be the end of it.” She felt a stirring under her left hand, spurring her to continue. “B-but I was wrong. And... and I feel strange saying this, but... I’m so happy that I was.”

For a brief moment, Peter’s expression faltered. “Why would you think that sounds strange?”

“B-because...”

Suddenly there was a burst of movement against Iris’s right palm. Peter gasped, his hands tightening on hers, and she looked up at him to see a startled, yet somehow ebullient, look in his eyes. “Well, at least _one_ of them definitely likes you,” he said, his words punctuated by laughter.

Iris laughed, her face breaking out into a smile so strong it made her cheeks hurt. All the while, her chest felt as if it had been run through with a dozen arrows. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes again. The twins knew her voice. She was someone to them. Wistfully, she wondered if they knew who she really was. They couldn’t possibly. They had never seen the outside world, and once they did, things would surely be different. But as she felt their stirrings from under Peter’s skin, she couldn’t help but think wishfully.

She would have to take her hands back. It was only right, only common sense. But she just _didn’t want to_.

It took another few minutes of berating herself before she finally gathered her resolve. Heart aching, she forced herself to let go of Peter. “We have to finish putting the core back,” she said softly. “I’m sorry for distracting you so long.”

“Oh, please, Iris. You weren’t distracting anyone,” he dismissively replied. “If anyone is to blame, it’s the twins.” With that, he calmly set to work reconnecting the wiring, but something still gnawed at Iris. She felt there was something more that had to be said. She didn’t know what it was, though, and it wouldn’t do any good to open her mouth and only have more small talk spill out.

Re-installing the core was quick work, and once it was finished, Peter collected the tools he’d used and took a step back from the lab table. “Johona should be coming home right about now, and I’m nearly finished in here. Would you mind stepping out for a little while? I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Iris mechanically nodded without question, in spite of the nagging ache in her chest. “Of course,” she said. She knew that when Peter asked her to leave the lab without him, it was almost always because he was going to work directly with blue matter. Judging by what the radiation had done to him and the feelings it stirred up, it came as no surprise that he didn’t want to risk the same thing happening to her.

Peter gave her no further questions, only a silent smile and a nod as he moved elsewhere in the lab to start up whatever mysterious processes he used to extract blue matter. Iris started up the stairs, and the pain in her chest grew sharper, its knives digging deeper with every step she took. Never before had it hurt her so much to walk away from him. Her brain felt close to overflowing with words unsaid, words that she couldn’t even put into a comprehensible order as they floated around in the space of her mind.

With each step, and with each twist of the regretful knives in her chest, things became clearer. She reached the landing at the top of the stairs. As she emerged into the library and closed the heavy oak door, it finally hit her.

The force was nearly physical, crushing her heart like the wheels of a steam train. She sank back against the door, letting a heavy sigh rush out from her lungs. She couldn’t believe her own naivety. All this time she’d thought that she could at least stay rational. Even if she let her imagination run wild every now and then, she never allowed herself to let those feelings infect the world around her. But in those few minutes, when she’d been alone with him, she had lost control. Now the knowledge stuck in her head like an ice pick lobotomy, and she feared she would never be able to dredge it out.

It wasn’t just Peter anymore. She’d fallen in love with the twins as well.

* * *

Johona came home to find Iris sitting alone in the parlor, staring at the wall with an open book resting in her lap.

“Evening, Iris,” she greeted her. “How much did I miss?”

“It must be the moccasins,” Johona said, smirking. She lifted the hem of her skirt, revealing the fact that she was indeed wearing a pair of beaded suede boots. “The patients in the children’s ward like when I wear them. They find shoes entertaining, for some reason.”

“They do seem rather nice.”

“Oh, believe me, I’d wear these in place of common shoes any day.” She placed down her day-travel bag on a coffee table, along with a plywood crate and paper-wrapped package of roughly the same size, then approached the fainting couch where Iris sat. “What is it that you’re reading there?”

“Th-this?” Iris murmured, looking down at the open book in her lap. She seemed to have forgotten it was there. “Oh. I-it’s... It’s just a lot of short stories. I wasn’t sure I’d have the time for another novel, so I-”

Johona leaned over and held the page with a finger to quickly glance at the cover. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman?” she mused, then turned back to the page where Iris had left off. “Wait a second. I think I’ve seen this before.”

“Have you?”

She scanned over a few lines. “ _The Yellow Wallpaper_? Well, Iris. I never took you to be a fan of the grotesque.”

“I-I wouldn’t say I’m, er, a _fan_ of it... Not especially,” Iris stammered. “Everyone likes a little sensationalism now and then.”

“You do have a point there,” Johona replied with a nod. “Anyways, speaking of sensationalism, how is our resident father-to-be?”

Iris looked at her, eyebrows knitted. “W-what does he have to do with sensationalism?”

“Nothing, really. Just a transition. But really, how is he? There isn’t anything I missed?”

“N-no, I don’t believe so,” the maid timidly replied, averting her eyes from Johona’s. That small movement alone set something off in the back of her mind, and she asked once more.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I should know?”

Iris’s gaze snapped back up to meet hers, eyes wide. “N-no, nothing.”

Johona pursed her lips, thinking. It was never any fun to press Iris for information. In the time that she had been sharing a house with the unassuming maid, she had taken note of all the small quirks that Peter had told her about beforehand. He was right in believing that something about her wasn’t quite right. It gave Johona the notion that her demure disposition was there for a reason, though she was never willing to be so obtrusive as to ask. She hated to interrogate someone so meek, but at times, she felt that she had to. She didn’t quite trust Peter to give her an accurate report of his condition. He had an infuriating tendency to gloss things over. If he’d fallen ill again, or had another strange, painful episode like he’d already had twice before...

Iris finally spoke up, interrupting Johona’s spell of worry. “He did let me into the lab with him today, if that’s significant at all.”

“He did?” Johona’s eyebrows rose. Now, that caught her interest. “And how did it go?”

“Well, I think,” Iris went on. “I didn’t do very much, though. Really just stayed and talked to him while he worked. I’m not sure what purpose it serves for him, but it is rather nice.”

In spite of the Iris’s dark skin, Johona could have sworn she saw a faint tinge of pink in her cheeks. “Really?” she continued. “I’ve done the same thing with him before. Contrary to what you might believe, he actually prefers to have people with him as opposed to working alone. He likes company. What did you two talk about while you were down there?”

“N-nothing much. A lot of small talk. I asked a lot of questions, like I always do, and let him answer them.” Iris sounded almost embarrassed as she spoke, as if it were disappointing that she’d said so little. “I-it was nothing out of the ordinary, really.”

“And that was it?” Johona incredulously asked.

“That was most of it,” the maid replied. She paused a little, gazing off into the distance with eyelashes fluttering, before she turned back to Johona and added, “And... um... th-the twins were active, too.”

Johona gasped, an excited cheshire grin pulling at her lips. “Were they?” she asked, leaning a little towards Iris. Her enthusiasm pulled a small smile from the maid’s face, and her eyes sparkled as she continued.

“Y-yes, very much so. They were still most of the time I was in the lab, but then they startled him... y-you know how he gets. And... a-and he...” Iris stopped for a second, as if she couldn’t find the words to relay what had happened. It only piqued Johona’s interest more, and she leaned in more to listen. “H-he let me feel it.”

“He let you feel them move?” Johona echoed, taken aback. That certainly wasn’t what she was expecting to hear.

Iris shrank back a little at her reaction, a sheepish look crossing her face. “Yes,” she shyly murmured. “I... I mean, you must have done it countless times before. It’s probably nothing special, really. I-I’m sure that with you, he must be used to...”

“Of course I’ve felt it before, but that’s kind of my job, isn’t it?” she cut in when Iris trailed off and didn’t continue. “I have to in order to keep track of his progress, but he rarely lets me touch him without a reason. Pray tell, what prompted this?”

“I-I don’t know!” Iris blurted out. “H-he only said it was because I seemed like I wanted to.”

“And did you?”

Iris turned her eyes away to stare shamefully at the floor again before mumbling, “I did. I was fascinated by his reaction, and I just found myself wondering...”

“Oh, believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s only the same thing that everyone who hasn’t had a chance to feel it for themselves wants to know.”

“But you’ve worked with pregnant women before, haven’t you?”

“I have, but none of them have ever been my friends.” She smirked and added, “And it really isn’t professional to tease your patients about their conditions.”

Iris laughed along, and the mood lightened a little. “What is it like when you feel it?” she asked.

“For me?” Johona parroted back to her, amused. She liked when Iris got a little bolder in conversation. “I find it absolutely fascinating. I would study him for hours, if he’d let me. Sadly, I can only ever get close to him for a few minutes at a time. Or if I catch him off-guard.” She snickered. “That really seems to set the twins off.” That got Iris to giggle a bit, so she went on. “So what was your impression? This was the first time you’ve ever felt them kicking, right?”

“It was,” Iris replied, quickly returning to her passive self.

“How did it feel?”

“It felt...” Iris started, but she trailed off, as if she’d forgotten how to speak again. The parlor was quiet for some time before she picked up the threads of her sentence. “I don’t know what to say. It was so strange... It was completely indescribable.”

Johona nodded as she listened intently to Iris’s every word. “You talk about this as if you’ve never felt it before.”

“Well... th-that’s because I haven’t,” Iris said softly. She sounded almost ashamed of that fact. “My parents never had any children other than me, and I don’t have any of my own.”

“But surely you must have some friends who’ve had children?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have many of those, either.”

In that second, the conversation fell flat. Johona stared at Iris, whose face was strangely stoic for having said what she did. The maid had spoken so casually, as if the sentence were laughable, or some kind of insignificant joke. It was vaguely unsettling, but Johona figured she had no place asking about it. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said instead, the words coming out as a reflex. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s no matter,” Iris blithely replied. “It wouldn’t be right for me to be bothering you with so many details, anyway.”

“But you...” Johona started to protest, but she quickly thought better of it. “Well, if you’d rather not talk about it, that’s fine. Anyways, I stopped at the post office again on my way back from the train station, and...”

A heavy _creak_ interrupted her story mid-sentence, and both women were quiet as they paused to listen. Footsteps echoed faintly down the corridor, drawing gradually nearer. A moment later, Peter’s tall, lanky figure appeared in the doorway. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said, offering them both a smile.

“Where have you been, you devil? I’ve been waiting here for ages!” Johona playfully scolded. She stood up from the couch and rushed over to him, throwing an arm over his shoulders in a quick embrace.

“I just had to make a few more attempts at gathering blue matter,” he explained when she let him go. “I’m falling behind my work on the first automaton. There’s no point in having her mechanics finished if she can’t run.”

“And how did it go?”

He shrugged. “Not the best. But I think I’m gaining a technique of some sort.”

“Always have to be making _some_ kind of progress,” Johona quipped. “Iris was just giving me an update on your condition.” As she spoke, she landed a playful poke on his belly, causing him to stiffen up before letting out a frustrated sigh. She giggled a little, and he rolled his eyes in response. He never did fail to amuse her.

“There’s really nothing to say,” he cut in, brushing her hand away. He looked over her shoulder at Iris, causing Johona to glance back at her as well. The maid sat watching them, quiet as a peculiarly attentive mouse. Peter stepped past Johona and went towards Iris. “I hope she didn’t grill you _too_ thoroughly.”

“It was only a few questions,” she cordially replied.

A lull in the conversation impending, Johona quickly spoke up. “Well, since all of us are here, I might as well show you what happened to be hanging around in your mailbox when I passed by the post office on my way back here.”

Peter’s gaze was immediately drawn to the crate and package sitting on the table. “ _Those_ things wouldn’t happen to be what you’re referring to, would they?”

“Those very things,” Johona elaborated. “And you’ll never be able to guess who they’re from.”

As if on cue, both Peter and Iris rushed to the packages and read the white paper labels stuck to both. Each one had a blood-red _URGENT_ stamp, and in stylized black text was the address of...

“The Dandy Candy Corporation,” Peter muttered. “What in god’s name is Taggart sending me now?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Johona said. “But you should probably know that whatever’s in that crate was making quite a lot of noise on the cab ride home.”

Peter looked up from the crate and stared at her, totally dumbstruck. Iris stared for a second as well, then stood up and quietly announced that she was going to get a hammer. While she was gone, Peter tore open the brown paper of the tied package. Resting inside were several lengths of wood, a small package of nails, a newspaper written in French, and a rolled-up sheet of chicken wire.

“What does he expect me to do with these?” Peter wondered out loud, only a moment before he saw the letter resting at the bottom of the pile of supplies. Hesitantly, he picked it up and unfolded it from its loose envelope. “Esteemed Mr. Walter...” he began to read. “It pains me to relay to you that the situation with Thaddeus Becile has not improved since I sent my last letter. All attempts to negotiate with him have failed thus far, and I have now begun to fear the worst. As I suspected, he has mobilized his ranks of mechanical beasts and now has them positioned outside the entrances of my mines on a perpetual basis. My workers are hesitant to go into their jobs every morning and to leave the mines at night. They tell me they fear for their lives, and some have already resigned from their positions.” Peter paused, staring at the letter and reading over the last few lines. “Mechanical beasts?” he murmured, deep in thought.

“What else does it say?” Johona impatiently cut in, itching to hear more. If Babclock was in real danger, she absolutely needed to know. And if there was any explanation for what he had sent... well, that would be just ducky.

Peter turned his attention to the paper again. “Right... Mechanical beasts... employees resigned their positions... I’ve heard rumors of a strike, yet those threats seem small in comparison to what Thaddeus is suggesting... Dear god, this man won’t stop talking about the same threats over and over.” He huffed and skimmed over the next few lines before finding a new place to start. “Once again, I am requesting your help. I fear that reasoning may be out of the question, even for someone as well-known to Thaddeus as yourself.” That seemed to be where he drew the line, since he scoffed and tossed the letter onto the coffee table, leaving it for Johona to pick up.

“What more is there?” she asked, glancing up at him, but Peter simply shook his head. Still waiting for an answer, she picked up the letter and read the rest on her own.

_If that is the case, I am in need of your technological expertise. Thaddeus has already constructed a regiment for himself, but if he holds off for any longer, I may have the good fortune of reaching you in time to form a defense of my own. Surely you are able to build machines of the same complexity as his. With such faith in your skills, I appeal to you as a professional and as a friend. Please help me before the situation becomes more serious._

“So Babclock wants you to build weapons?” she mused, but Peter made no attempt to respond, leaving her to return to the letter.

_As you can see, I have sent you a small gift in the company of this unfortunate message. Please accept it as a courtesy from me personally, as well as the Dandy Candy Corporation as a whole. I send it in good faith that it might persuade you to join me in my cause. Rest assured that this small token is barely a fraction of the reward you shall receive, should you choose to aid me._

_Kindest regards, Taggart Babclock_

“A gift,” Johona murmured. She set the letter down on the table as her eyes drifted suspiciously over to the crate.

That seemed to pull Peter from his angry reverie. “What was that about a gift?”

“You must not have read that far in the letter. He said he sent a gift.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the crate and the unraveled package of building supplies next to it. “But what kind of gift is one that squeals?”

At the mention of the word _squeals_ , Peter’s eyes widened and his posture grew tense. He looked quickly around the room. “Where is Iris with that hammer?”

“Right here!” As if by magic, the maid appeared the moment her name was mentioned. She handed the heavy tool off to Johona, who started easing the nails out of the plywood boards that held the crate together. She absolutely had to know what sort of thing Babclock considered a “gift.” He’d been a little eccentric in the time she’d known him, not unlike herself or anyone else from the Cavalcadium. And in spite of his primary occupation as a geologist, he always did have an unorthodox liking for wildlife.....

As the last few nails came loose from the crate, Babclock’s gift shuffled and knocked against the sides, startling all three people in the room. Johona worked at the last attachments with renewed curiosity. At long last, she lifted the lid from the crate, only to be nearly knocked backwards by the smell that drifted up from the opening. The stench was sharp and noxious, reminding her of badly-kept farms, abandoned barns, stables she’d cleaned and animals used for experiments, and she promptly slammed the lid back down on the box as soon as she’d opened it. Slowly it dissipated, and Johona steeled herself before she lifted the lid again.

The smell wasn’t nearly so bad the second time around, and it was hardly something that Johona wasn’t used to. Close behind her, she heard Iris make a small noise of displeasure, as well as the distinct sound of Peter gagging. Trying not to breathe too deeply, Johona peered over the edge of the crate to look inside. The whole thing seemed to be filled with dry raffia and sawdust, all except for a lump of dusty brown that was situated in the center of it all. And, she noted, the lump was breathing.

In spite of the overpowering smell- she had finally managed to identify it as unclean animal bedding- she reached into the crate with both her hands in order to remove Babclock’s so-called gift. The raffia became unpleasantly moist where her fingertips scraped the bottom of the crate, and she tried not to think of why that might have been as she caught hold of the lump, which had started to frantically squirm as she tried to get a grip on it. Digging her fingers into soft fur, Johona unearthed it from the filthy packing material with one swift movement. The gift squealed in protest, kicked its feet, tried to wriggle out of her grasp, and eventually went still, its sides heaving from the effort and its nose twitching in agitation.

Peter stared at the panicked animal in Johona’s hands, stone-faced in shock. “That’s a rabbit,” he murmured in disbelief.

“Certainly seems like one,” she retorted, turning it around and adjusting her hold so its legs weren’t dangling from her hands. It had stopped struggling, and finally seemed to have gotten its bearings. Since it had gone still, it became apparent that it wasn’t a large rabbit, only a little bigger than what Johona could hold with both hands. Its ears were laid back against its head, its nose twitching to pick up the smell of its new surroundings. It stared at Peter and Iris with beady, inquisitive grey eyes, looking back and forth between them.

Iris’s face remained crumpled from the smell that drifted up from the crate. She quickly set the lid back on top of it. “How long has that thing been in there?” she wondered out loud. “I hope Mr. Babclock didn’t send it directly from Africa. That would have taken...”

“He might have,” Johona unpromptedly replied. “Babclock might like animals, but he was never the best at knowing how to care for them.”

Peter, on the other hand, seemed to still be reeling over the fact that there was now an animal in the parlor. “Why did Taggart send me a rabbit?” he asked no one in particular. “What the hell does he think I’m going to do with a rabbit?”

“Don’t know.” Johona turned the rabbit around so its beady eyes fixed on her. “Maybe he thought you were lonely and could use a friend.”

“A rabbit friend?”

She shrugged. “Or thought you could use a lab animal.”

“But my kind of science doesn’t use lab animals!”

“You know, you’re making this situation a lot more dramatic than it needs to be,” she said, glancing briefly past the rabbit to shoot him a look.

“But... but... he sent me a goddamn rabbit! Why?!” Peter went on. When no one responded, he collapsed onto the couch and took up Johona’s current occupation of staring at the rabbit.

“It’s probably beyond the point of asking why,” Iris chimed in. “He sent the rabbit, whatever his reasons were, and now it’s here. We only need to figure out what to do with it.”

The rabbit started to struggle again, so Johona stopped holding it up and settled it into her lap, trying to forget the suspiciously damp fur she’d felt on its back feet. “So... what are we going to do with it?”

“Well, we can’t keep it here,” Peter said right away.

“Why not?” Johona countered just as quickly. She nodded at the pile of materials. “He at least had the foresight to send us a deconstructed hutch.”

“Do you think we don’t have enough to worry about with what’s already going on?”

“It’s just a rabbit, Peter.”

“Right, and I’m just carrying two human fetuses,” he shot back.

“Well, we can’t very well send it back to Africa!”

“H-he does have a point,” Iris shyly chimed in.

“Fine,” Johona sighed. She looked down at the rabbit and stroked her fingers through its fur, trying to get an objective idea of its size. “There’s probably enough meat on this thing to stew it.”

“S-stew it?” Iris squeaked.

“I’ve done it before. It really isn’t that difficult.” Only after she’d said the words did Johona look up at the maid and notice the faintly horrified look on her face.

“D-do we really have to be so rash about this?” she timidly asked.

“Babclock sent us this thing from Africa, right?” Peter pointed out.

Johona looked at the crate and pile of supplies. “I’d assume so.”

“Then we can turn it loose. If he sent us a wild animal, then there won’t be any problem putting it back in the wilderness, _where it belongs_.”

“But it’s not wild. Look at it.” She nodded to the rabbit, which was now sitting peacefully. “It’s obviously been raised to be used to people. Chances are this thing was bottle-fed and grew up in a cage. If we set it loose, it would get killed in a matter of hours.”

“At least Iris wouldn’t have to see it happen!”

The maid seemed surprised by the mention of her name. “N-now, you don’t need to make any decisions just because of me...”

Peter looked sideways at her with an earnest expression. “Well, I’m not disregarding you, either.”

“If no one is coming to a decision about this thing, I’m just going to have to take matters into my own hands,” Johona interrupted.

“So you’re going to slaughter it?” Peter asked in an accusatory tone.

“I never said that was my intention.”

“But you implied it.”

“Implications aside, we have to figure something out.” She paused for a second to take in the situation. “So we have a gift rabbit now. Iris doesn’t want to stew it. Turning it loose would just be cruel. And we can’t pack it back up and send it back to Africa, since that would probably be worse than anything else we could do.” Stopping mid-sentence, she turned to Iris. “Have you ever worked with animals before?”

Iris startled a little at the question and scrambled to answer. “N-no, not really... I’ve worked for people who had pets, b-but that’s as much experience as I have.”

“Well, both of you know that I’ve got a weird knack for keeping things alive.” She lifted the rabbit up again to get another thorough look at it. “I’d reckon all this thing needs is a good cleaning and something fresh to eat, and it’ll do just fine.”

Peter raised a suspicious eyebrow at her. “What do you mean, it’ll do just fine?”

“I mean, none of us can come to a decision on how to get rid of the rabbit, so in the meantime, it’ll just have to stay.”

“Come on, Johona. That’s not fair.”

“No, what really isn’t fair is that Babclock is stupid enough to think that a rabbit makes a good gift.” She gathered the rabbit into her arms and stood up. “I’m off to give this poor thing a bath. God knows it needs one. Iris, would you mind getting rid of the crate?”

“Not at all,” the maid replied, sounding almost relieved. She approached the coffee table and started gathering the remains of the crate.

Peter watched the both of them in a daze, as if he’d gotten lost at some point in the conversation. “Am I just not getting a say in any of this?”

“Not one that no one else is in agreement with,” Johona corrected him. She stroked the rabbit’s ears, feeling oddly like an evil mastermind as she did. “As long as this thing is going to be living here, we might as well give it a name.”

“Why give it a name if we aren’t planning on keeping it?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet.” Johona glanced back and forth between her friend and his newfound rabbit. “We could always call it Peter.”

A slight smile crossed Iris’s face at the suggestion. “Peter the rabbit?” she giggled.

“Johona, you are not naming a rabbit after me,” the mentioned man said, decidedly less amused than anyone else.

“Are you sure?” She lifted up the rabbit to study it again. “It looks like a Peter to me.”

“What about Kepler?”

Johona turned in surprise to the source of the shy suggestion, which happened to be Iris. “How did you come up with that one?” she asked.

“I-I’m not sure. I was just thinking of a few names that I knew. Ones that I’d seen in different places. I remembered Johannes Kepler, an astronomer that I once read about. And then I just thought, _Kepler might be a nice name for a rabbit_.”

She looked back and forth between Peter and Johona, waiting for a response of some kind. Johona deferred the glance to Peter, who simply shrugged. “I’m not taking responsibility for this. As long you don’t keep trying to name things after me.”

Johona smiled with satisfaction. “Excellent. Then we’ll call it Kepler until further notice. Iris is already onto getting rid of the crate, so... Peter, would you mind getting started on the hutch? Kepler will need somewhere to sleep.”

“Don’t you think that I should be focusing on something a little more immediate than that?” Peter subversively suggested. “Like, I don’t know, maybe getting dinner started?”

“Iris can help you once she’s gotten rid of the crate.”

“I’m saying that _you_ were supposed to decide what we were cooking tonight, Johona.”

“I’ll cook when the rabbit is clean,” Johona tossed back. With that, she turned on her heel and left the room, leaving both her friend and his maid staring after her.

Kepler settled comfortably into the bend of her elbow as she made her way towards the lab. That was the only place she knew would have a sink large enough to bathe a rabbit in without any risk of contaminating food with whatever had gotten its fur so soggy. She’d have to change her clothes afterward, and maybe spot-clean the coffee table, just in case the crate hadn’t kept its mess contained. Still, she felt like she’d earned some kind of small victory, convincing her friend to keep the rabbit, although as far as she was concerned, she’d be the one caring for it.

Even with the rabbit foreseeably lifted from Peter’s shoulders, Johona had a nagging suspicion that it wouldn’t be long before he started caring for it as well. It would be good practice for him. That was to say, if he happened to decide that he wanted to raise the twins. But Johona didn’t have very much reason to doubt him anymore. For as long as she had known him, she’d been able to read Peter like an open book.

That same reason was why she was so sure he would eventually warm up to Kepler. That seemed to be the way that most things went for him.

* * *

The last time Peter had seen a clock, it had been half past midnight. Most of the lights in the house were off. Every corner of it was quiet and empty, all except for the ones he’d passed through. Johona was definitely asleep, and as far as he knew, so was Iris. He hadn’t seen either of them in what must have been hours. Running on that assumption, he felt that it was safe enough for him to wander out of his room and into the kitchen.

He must have been lying in bed for an hour, trying to slip into peaceful oblivion. Sleep had failed him once again that night. After a gathering of torturous minutes spent changing positions, pushing the covers off, putting them back on, and receiving a few disdainful kicks from the twins every time he moved, he decided that there was probably something better that he could have been doing.

That was what had landed him in the kitchen, shuffling through containers in the pantry to find Iris’s latest pastry creation, a batch of lemon squares that had somehow lasted long enough for there to be a few left in storage. The cravings had hit not long after he left his room, and as late as it was, he hadn’t hesitated to satisfy them. If no one else was awake, no one would catch him. He was sure he’d be fine, as long as he wasn’t asked any questions.

It wasn’t just the sudden cravings that kept him awake. There had been a number of things weighing on his mind long before that, and most of them had to do with the odd postage that had been sent to him that afternoon. Taggart’s first letter had disturbed him enough. He’d spent a few nearly sleepless nights thinking it over, wondering whether or not he’d made the right decision in not making a decision at all. Now it seemed that the situation in Africa had gone sharply downhill. If Taggart was desperate enough to be bribing him with gifts, it had to be serious. Perhaps Thaddeus really meant to make good on his threats. He couldn’t bring himself to think of what might happen if fighting actually broke out.

It pained him to be left standing by while such atrocities were going on elsewhere. But then, if the conflict did become violent and he gave in to his guilty conscience, what kind of foolish risk would it be to try and fight overseas in his condition? He’d be risking his life, not to mention those of the twins and obliterating whatever dregs of a positive reputation that he’d managed to maintain. No, traveling to Africa was out of the question. He couldn’t help Taggart fight his battles. There was already too much at stake. He had to stay out of the spotlight. He had to keep his secrets hidden. He had to keep the twins safe.

Obviously, Taggart hadn’t understood him clearly enough when he had chosen to disregard the first letter. He would have to reply to this one. He’d keep it plain and simple, tell the man that he had no desire to be a part of the conflict, that he could be of no help when it came to Thaddeus, that he had never made a weapon before and never wanted to. That would be reason enough to convince him. He didn’t need to know about the twins, his crippling grief, or the fact that he was frightened to do so much as leave his home and risk being seen. The less Taggart knew about him, the better.

As the gears in Peter’s head ground on, delicate footsteps approached from the hallway, amplified by the cavernous foyer. He raised his head and turned to look towards the source of the sound. A moment later, Iris had appeared in the doorway.

“Peter?” she quietly called to him.

“Hm?” he impassively replied.

The maid took a few cautious steps closer, studying Peter with her big, doe-like eyes. It took a second for Peter to realize what she was wearing: a simple, sleeveless linen shift, and little else. She looked different that way, though it was hard to place the reason why. Then it sank in: she wasn’t wearing her corset.

“What are you doing down here so late?” she asked.

Peter sighed and looked down at the partially-eaten lemon square in his hand. “Eating my feelings, more than anything else.”

Iris ventured a little closer. She approached the kitchen table where he sat leaning against the edge. Slowly, she pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, hesitating with every movement as if she expected him to stop her at any moment. Seeming content, she settled into the chair and leaned against the table, her wild curls falling forward with the rest of her, and turned her head to look at him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she inquired softly.

“No,” Peter deadpanned in reply, punctuating with another bite of lemon square.

“Would it be a bad thing if I asked why?”

“You’d only be the first one asking.”

Iris straightened up in her seat at his response, suddenly looking awake and alert, keeping her gaze fixed on him with undivided attention. One look at her assured him that he could tell her anything. Whatever he had to say, she’d be willing to listen. And unlike Johona, Iris wasn’t the type to assume or judge. In that moment, Peter couldn’t have been more thankful for that.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he mumbled. “It’s Babclock, and it’s the automaton project, and it’s me, and the twins, and now this godforsaken rabbit that showed up out of nowhere and who knows what else.” When Iris made no attempt to reply, even after he’d finished off the lemon square, he continued. “There’s too much happening at once, and I don’t know how to manage any of it. I know I must have said this before, but things have changed, and... and it feels so much worse now.” He sighed and buried his face in his hand. His fingers tangled into his hair, and he pulled at it in frustration, wishing he had even a remotely better grasp on things.

“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed,” Iris murmured beside him.

With a sudden start, Peter straightened up and turned to look at her. She stared back at him, seeming alarmed. Her words had been so quiet, he’d barely heard them over the sound of his own breathing. Even here, sitting in the kitchen with him late at night, both of them alone and in pajamas... Even now, she’d spoken like a subordinate.

“It should be,” he replied, keeping his voice low to match hers. “But I can’t help feeling like I don’t deserve that luxury.”

“I-it’s only an emotion, Peter. People have them.”

“I know. I _know_ that, I only... I just can’t help but feel like there’s some kind of purpose to all of this. Poetic justice or something like that. I can’t have gone this far without there being a reason. This can’t be a simple coincidence. I must have done something...” He paused, his eyes widening with sudden realization. “Dear god, when was the last time I went to church?”

That, for some strange reason, drew a small, shy giggle from Iris. “Pardon my saying, b-but I really don’t think that’s the issue.”

“Why not? It only makes sense. I’ve been gone after for this before, and maybe they were right, telling me off for...” He trailed off, unable to finish.

“P-personally, I think that religion has next to nothing to do with this,” Iris said, picking up the loose threads he’d left. “I-I have no place advising you on whether or not to go to church, but I don’t think it’ll change anything. Even spending every waking moment in a church didn’t help me. Look at me. I’m just as much a heathen as I was before.”

A dull laugh slipped from Peter’s lips, breathy and humorless. “What would you know about spending every waking moment in a church?”

The instant the words left his mouth, all emotion seemed to drain from Iris’s face. He heard her inhale, sharp and soft, and her eyes stared blankly at him, wide and glassy. She stayed like that for a moment, looking like she’d just let slip some huge, terrible secret, before her expression finally softened and she let her gaze fall away from her employer. “Heh... I-I suppose there’s no sense in keeping it a secret now.”

Peter didn’t say anything, only kept his gaze on Iris and waited. A second passed, and she took a breath and brought her eyes back up to meet his. “Before I came to live here, I... I was living in a church.”

“A church?” he echoed in confusion.

“Th-the belltower, to be exact,” the maid explained. “I was allowed to stay there rent-free out of the clergy’s charity. Well, I suppose it wasn’t _completely_ rent-free. In exchange for my stay, I did some housekeeping for them at night, and whenever work from Miriam was slower than usual. Polishing candleholders, sweeping floors and such. Only an equal exchange for what they were willing to give me.” She paused, a little half-proud smile on her face. “They let me ring the service bells, too, on Sundays and holidays. It was a good arrangement, really, and one that I desperately needed.”

“You slept in a church?” Peter asked the question absently. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been listening. He had, and he’d paid attention to each upcoming detail. His real dilemma was that he simply couldn’t wrap his head around what she was telling him.

“Yes, I did. I-I wasn’t in a bad situation, if that’s what you were thinking. It was probably the best one I could have found.”

It still wasn’t quite sinking in. Peter had known since hiring Miriam that most of the girls in her charge weren’t from the most stable of economic backgrounds. Most of them were born from immigrant parents, or were immigrants themselves, all of them slaving and scrounging to earn a wage from whatever work they could find. He’d heard stories about tenement buildings, missing rent payments, living with family that desperately needed their contributions. But he’d never expected this. Until he had promoted her, she’d been living in the same place that she worked, a place that she couldn’t even call her own. She might as well have been a slave, for the little that she got out of the arrangement. She might as well have just said that she was homeless.

“But... I thought Miriam paid you better than that. Didn’t you at least have enough to live on?”

“I-I did... I used to,” she tentatively explained. “I was renting a room of my own, not long ago. B-but... things became a little... um, c-complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Peter mindlessly asked, and Iris seemed to shrink away from the question. Seeing her like that, Peter wanted to take it back, but he had to know. He’d hear whatever she was willing to tell him. But, just as he’d expected, the only answer he got was an averted gaze and a nervous hitch in her voice.

“I-I really don’t think that it matters,” she said, and he knew that was the end of it.

“Then you don’t have to explain.” He placed his hand over hers on the table and gently stroked her thumb with his own. She seemed startled by the contact at first, but one quick glance at their overlapping hands, and she relaxed before him. “It’s late anyway. I’m sure sleeping is a little more important than listening to an old screw-up monologue about his problems.”

“You’re thirty-three, Peter,” Iris declared, a hint of laughter in her voice. “You’re not old.”

“But aren’t I?” he weakly protested. “Maybe not to some, but I must certainly seem that way to you.”

“You don’t.” She gave him a shy smile. “I’ll bet you’ve never been told how old I am.”

“I never thought to ask.”

She looked at him queerly for a second, cocked her head to the side. “I’m twenty-eight,” she stated. “My birthday was nearly two months ago.”

Peter’s eyebrows rose. “I could never tell. You’ve always looked so much younger,” he said, but as soon as the words were out, he started to stutter. “I-In a good way, of course. I mean that as a compliment. I-I’m not saying that you look childish, or anything. Only that...” He sighed and canned the clarifications. “I do wish you would have told me when your birthday was, though. I might have liked to give you something.”

A touch a of color rose to Iris’s cheeks. “Y-you don’t have to do that, Peter.”

“Well... I only thought it might have been nice. Someone like you deserves a little niceness every now and then.” It would have been unprofessional of him, he knew. Very rarely did an employer fraternize so much with his employees, and even more rarely did he feel such empathy for them. But since Iris had come to live in his house, he hadn’t felt so much like her employer anymore as something else. He had been hoping for some time that they could be friends in their time together. If nothing else, he had hoped that she could come out of her hesitant, submissive shell while under his wing.

“I didn’t need a gift, though,” she said, her smile growing brighter. “Becoming your resident maid was a gift enough.”

With a quick palpitation, Peter’s heart grew inexplicably warmer. Iris’s smile was infectious, pulling at the corners of his own mouth until his face had mirrored hers. “I never knew you felt that way,” he told her, causing her smile to brighten even more. But even with a cozy feeling rising in his chest, he was aware of how late it was. Slowly, as if it pained him, he lifted his hand away from hers. “It really is late, though. We should get back to bed. The last thing we need is to be losing more sleep.”

Iris nodded her agreement, obedient as ever. Without a word, the two of them stood up from their chairs. Peter returned the remaining lemon squares to their spot in the pantry, and they made their way back to the upstairs hallway, turning off the lights as they went. Iris climbed the stairs two steps ahead of Peter, and as he watched, he was struck again by how different she looked without a corset. It wasn’t something he’d ever had the opportunity to notice before, since he’d never seen her without one under her clothes. He could usually tell the difference between when a woman wore one and when she didn’t. Her movements were always a little more restricted, her breathing more shallow, her waist always looking uncomfortably tight. A good deal of women at the Cavalcadium wore them, and even some men, or so he’d heard. Johona had never worn one, having a deeply-ingrained hatred for them from a young age, and Delilah had only used one when it was deemed absolutely necessary.

Iris seemed to have more energy when her ribs weren’t being squeezed. She moved freely up the stairs ahead of him, her breath not even the slightest bit heavier. And he couldn’t ignore that her body was different, too. She was softer, the lines of her hips delicately outlined by the drape of her shift. He’d never seen it before, but now he realized that Iris was a little plump around her waist, even more so at her hips. He’d never been able to tell, since her habitual uniform kept all of it restrained and hidden. Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t help but think that it was appealing on her.

At the top of the stairs, Iris waited for him, and he offered to escort her to her room. She seemed ready to refuse the offer, but accepted at the very last moment. He followed her down the hall and around the corner, all the way to the end and the door of the small lilac-papered room.

For a minute, neither one of them seemed sure what to do. Logic dictated that Iris turn in for the night and Peter leave her to it, but something kept him standing there and Iris’s eyes locked with his. His hand twitched, waiting to turn the doorknob and open the door for her, but it never got the chance before he took a breath and spoke. “Iris, there’s... something I meant to ask you.”

The maid’s eyes blinked in surprise, and he saw them sparkle for a second. “What is it?”

“It’s about this afternoon. And about you, as well.”

“Yes?”

Peter was silent for a moment, trying to get his thoughts in order and ensure that his words wouldn’t fail him. “When I asked you about the twins... When I asked if you wanted to feel them move, I had a reason for doing so,” he began. “I couldn’t help but notice that... well, in the time that you’ve been working here, you seem to have taken a great interest in me and my... er, my condition.”

As he spoke, he saw Iris grow a little tenser. He knew that prying might upset her, but he had to know. She’d tried to be subtle about it, and in most people’s eyes, she probably had been. But Peter was trained in observation. It seemed that Iris was just as observant as he was, and if that was the truth, he was sure he already knew that he’d caught onto her habits. Telling her everything would simply be stating the obvious. But if he didn’t, there would always be the risk that she would never know the truth.

All at once, his words seemed to fluster her. “I-I’m just as interested as anyone else would be,” she stuttered.

“I know that. You’ve told me before. But at times, it just seems like...” He sighed and rethought his sentence. “I’ve seen the way that you look at me, Iris. It isn’t the way that most people would regard anyone else, whether they were pregnant or not.”

“Peter.” Iris whispered his name like a prayer on her lips. He heard her breath catch in her throat, and she swallowed and tried to continue. “P-Peter, I...”

“You don’t have to give me a reason right now, if you don’t want to,” he quickly explained. “But I just want you to know something. Whatever the reason it is that you have for being so interested... it’s fine if you have strong feelings about what’s going on. I do, and so does Johona. And if what you said a while ago, when you told me that you find it exciting... if that is really true, it isn’t a problem.”

“I-it isn’t?” It was a genuine question. Iris asked it with pure uncertainty in her eyes, watching him and waiting patiently for a response.

“No. Of course it isn’t.” Peter raised a hand to rest it on Iris’s shoulder. He felt her shiver faintly as he did, and he could only hope that she found it comforting. “You should know... if you ever have anything that you want to talk to me about concerning... well, all of _this_...” He gestured pointedly at himself. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Even if I want to touch you again?” It would have been an odd question to ask, if it were coming from anyone else but her.

“Especially that,” he said. He let his hand drift a little ways down her arm, and a thought struck him. “Would you like to?”

Iris’s eyes widened in surprise. “I... do, actually. I do.”

Peter let his hand drift down the length of her arm and came to a stop at her wrist. Holding it gently, he guided it toward his abdomen. “I’m going to have to apologize that they aren’t very active right now,” he said. “They rarely ever move like they did this afternoon.”

Strangely enough, as Iris’s hand came to rest on the his belly, he felt a light tap from within. Iris’s eyes shimmered, and he knew that she’d felt it too. She spread her fingers out, flattening her palm against the gradual curve of his stomach, and he felt it again, a little closer to where her hand rested than before. It was almost as if the little creatures inside him were trying to reach out to her. The thought made him smile, and though she wasn’t looking at his face anymore, Iris’s face lit up in the exact same way.

She didn’t hold her hand in place as long as she had before. After just a moment, she let it slide away from him and reached for the doorknob of her bedroom. Peter watched as she pushed the door open and took a step towards the lilac-tinted darkness. As she did, she looked up at him again. “Goodnight, Peter,” she said softly. “A-and thank you... for everything.”

“I should be thanking you, Iris,” he replied. She gave him one last glimpse of her shy smile before the door closed between them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These friccin' nerds will be the death of me, I swer on me mum.  
> I am literally on the verge of passing out right now. Too tired to leave a proper note.  
> See you next chapter.


	14. Slow Disclosure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I haven't been able to come up with a well-thought-out title for ANYTHING in this whole story.  
> I just got out of college for winter break, and tonight is my first night at home. At the same time, this is another chapter where some IMPORTANT STUFF (tm) happens. I figured that now is as good a time as any to make an update.  
> Dang, this chapter was actually sort of aptly named, because this author's note is actually coming to me really slowly. Also, the rest of the story is going hella slow as well. Yes, the story is incomplete. I'm not writing it in the timeframe that I post (I go back, reread and edit. I'm not a TOTAl heathen.) But it still isn't entirely finished yet. So if I ever take another break before the start of my next semester... well, that's probably why. Though I have a suspicion that I'll probably finish over the break. I've nearly gotten to the end as it is.  
> I don't know why I keep dropping the same information into the notes of every single chapter, because if anyone is loyally reading this, they probably already know all of this. Still, I'm thanking volatileSoloiste, cicada_s, TheWhimsicalBard and Feep for their help in motivating me to continue writing and posting this catastrophe. Please leave kudos and comment, because I'm a whore. If you post, be sure to use blacklisted tags and the official tag for this story (fic: alaout, etc.)  
> ALSO, ESPECIALLY IN THIS CHAPTER, I want to credit tea_and_outer_space for their contributions to Iris's backstory. For a character that the fandom generally knows nothing about, I've managed to build her up quite a lot, and most of it thanks to tea_and_outer_space.  
> THIS CHAPTER HAS CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS: racism, child abuse, physical trauma, organ damage and extensive revelation of tragic backstories. Anyone who's beta-read for me can probably guess what all of this relates to. Also some awkwardly sensual clothing removal and copious amounts of consent. Because that's always important.

 

In all of three weeks, no one ever came to a decision on what to do with Kepler the rabbit, so it was decided that she would stay. And Kepler  _ was _ a she, as Johona had pointed out after giving her a bath. There was some hesitation on the subject of her name, since Peter found it a little funny for a female rabbit to be named after a man, but in a greater sense, everyone supposed that it didn’t really matter.

In spite of the condition that she had arrived in, Kepler had thrived under Johona’s care. She was a much prettier rabbit when she was clean, and had become almost spastic with energy after just a few days of being properly fed. In addition to the hutch that Taggart had sent, Johona had taken it upon herself to steal a few of Peter’s tools from the lab to build a second hutch for her own room, then another for the parlor, and finally a short fence out of wire to place around the front porch so that Kepler could go outside. Peter suspected that she was spoiling the rabbit just to spite him.

So Kepler stayed, and as September set in and dragged onward, the summer started to wane. Without the overbearing heat, Peter felt a little more inclined to step outside the house every once in a while. Johona had managed to lure him out of the lab by teasing him that it wasn’t the blue matter radiation that had turned his skin paper-white, but the fact that he rarely ever saw the sun anymore. When he finally did accept the invitation to spend the last few hours of daylight out of the lab, his friend made a field day out of it and decided to bring Kepler along.

It was this habit that saw him sitting outside on the steps of the back porch and taking in last few dregs of a late summer day. Johona was nearby, kneeling in the grass with Kepler close by, the rabbit experimentally nipping at the blades. As much as he’d reacted to Kepler’s unexpected arrival, she really hadn’t caused very much of a strain on the household, aside from Johona’s splurging at farm markets and hardware stores. She was kept out of his hair for the most part, except for the hours when Johona wasn’t home. Sometimes Kepler got noisy if she was ignored for too long. Usually Iris tended to her when Johona couldn’t, but many times, chance had it that Peter was the one who fell victim to one of Kepler’s tantrums. They never lasted, and he usually managed to shut her up with a carrot or a few apple slices. Johona had told him many times that food usually wasn’t what Kepler really wanted when she rattled the wire of her hutch. He still had yet to learn what that meant.

He watched as Johona pulled up a few blades of grass and tickled Kepler’s nose with them. The rabbit jumped back at first, as if startled, then inched forward and nibbled the ends of the grass. Johona smiled and murmured something that sounded like “Good girl, Kepler” that Peter couldn’t really hear. He was glad that it was Johona that had taken on Kepler instead of him. She was so good with living things of any sort, and he found it somewhat soothing to watch her whenever she took Kepler out to play. There was something endearing about their interaction. Peter would never admit to having grown attached to the rabbit, but he did find her fairly entertaining.

Then, with a sudden flicker of movement, Kepler’s attention had been diverted. She left the half-stems of grass in Johona’s hand and turned around, twitching her nose at the air. Her ears stood straight up, then fell back as she turned and began hopping across the grass. “Kepler?” Johona called after her, but she made no attempt to stop the rabbit in her course. It took a second for Peter to realize that it was because she was making her way towards him .

Kepler stopped at his feet and sat upright, her grey eyes fixed on him. They studied one another for a moment, Kepler sniffing, Peter wondering what she wanted from him. The rabbit took another cautious hop forward, landing her front paws on the lowest step. Peter lowered a hand and held it in front of her nose.

She stared at him at first, as if she wasn’t sure what to do. A few seconds passed, and she was sniffing him, as if she could gather his intent from the smell of his hand. Then she bumped her nose against his crooked fingers and nibbled gently at his knuckle. 

Peter felt his lips pull into a slight smile.  _ Alright, I’ll admit it _ .  _ That is pretty charming. _

A distance away, he heard Johona laughing. He looked up to see her still sitting in the grass, watching him with a wicked grin on her face. “I knew you would warm up to her eventually,” she said.

“Who? The rabbit?” he tossed back. As if by impulse, he took his hand back, ignoring Kepler’s pitiful stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t be an ass, Peter,” Johona scolded him. “This is the way you always are. Now give her your hand back.”

He pretended to be incredulous, even though he did as he was told. “What do you mean, this is the way I always am?”

“You’re always slow to love things,” she explained. “That’s what I’ve gathered, anyway. It doesn’t matter if it’s with people, places, animals or anything else.” She paused a moment, then added, “You were even that way with the twins.”

The words startled Peter so much that he nearly stuck his hand into Kepler’s mouth. “What?” he bemusedly asked. She couldn’t be comparing a rabbit to  _ that _ .

“You heard me.”

Apparently she really was making that comparison. “The twins and the rabbit have absolutely nothing to do with one another.”

“Maybe, but you reacted to them both the same way,” she elaborated. “If you care to remember, the first thing you did when you found out that you were pregnant was try to kill them.”

“You can’t compare  _ babies _ to  _ rabbits _ , Johona,” Peter insisted. “It’s different with the twins, not to mention a lot more serious.”

Johona grinned. “If I remember right, it used to irritate you when I called them that. Don’t you see what’s happening? You’ve warmed up to them, and now you’re doing the same with Kepler. It’s just how you are.”

“Fine. I’ll just say you’re right, if that’s what you want to believe.” He sighed and looked back down at Kepler, who had stopped her nibbling and now stared expectantly up at him. He stretched his fingers out to scratch between her ears, and she contentedly squinted her eyes shut. “I can’t believe I let you and Iris convince me to keep this thing.”

“Is it the rabbit or the pregnancy that you’re referring to?”

Peter’s head snapped upright to let him shoot an angry glare at his friend. “The rabbit, Johona,” he snipped. “Iris had nothing to do with my decision to carry the twins.”

“No, not at the outset,” she agreed, his glowering seeming to go right over her head. 

“At the outset?”

“Well, she’s involved now, isn’t she?” Johona stood up from her place in the grass and approached to sit beside him and Kepler.

“Yes,” Peter replied. “Very much so.”

“She’s taken a lot of interest in you.”

“I thought you might have noticed.”

It was true that in the past weeks, Iris had become a bit bolder in expressing her interest in Peter’s condition. Every day, the first moment she saw him, she dove right into questions; she asked him how he felt, if there was anything he needed, if his cravings or mood swings or morning sickness had been bothering him lately. She’d told him on multiple occasions that, should there be anything he needed from her, all he needed to do was ask. As for her requests to feel his stomach, she’d been sparing with them. He knew that she was holding back on purpose. There was something about the bright-eyed wonderment that overwhelmed her whenever she was close to him, hinting that if she were allowed, she would have her hands on him every waking moment of the day.

“It makes me wonder,” Johona mused. “Has she always been like this, or is all this fascination with you something recent?”

Peter shrugged. “I can’t be sure. I’m not a mind reader. I can’t tell you what goes on in Iris’s head any more than I could tell you how any of this happened in the first place. I only told her a few weeks ago that she didn’t have to be so careful when she spoke to me.”

“Seems like she’s pretty taken with you.”

“With me?” He couldn’t help but laugh. “No, it’s only that she’s excited by everything that’s been going on. Anyone would be. That doesn’t mean...” He trailed off, unable to finish. He realized that he was making the exact same excuses that Iris had, only a short time before he had drawn out the confession that it wasn’t only the customary, conventional joy that she found in knowing what was happening to him.

“That reminds me,” Johona said, interrupting his reverie, “we haven’t figured out what we’ll do with these things once they’re born, have we?”

The reminder sent an uneasy shiver down Peter’s spine. Kepler hopped down from the porch to resume scampering circles on the dry grass. He sighed and watched her with a blank stare. “If they are born,” he flatly contested. “And if they’re healthy enough to live in this world. Not to mention, if they are even human in the first place.”

“Come on, Walter. It won’t kill you to think a little more positively.” 

Peter glared sideways at her, thinking to himself that he wouldn’t be so sure about that. Johona only smirked at his dismal expression and went on speaking. “I’m saying that we’re going to need a plan. Let’s just say, for the sake of a hypothetical, that they’re born a pair of healthy, human infants. Whatever happens will happen, and if plans have to be changed, then we’ll change them.”

“I suppose... we’ll need to find a home for them,” he offered weakly.

“So that’s it? You’re not even considering trying to raise them yourself?”

Peter shuddered, an icy stone of guilt settling in his chest. “That isn’t what I said.”

“I hope it isn’t. If you’re planning on finding a family to adopt them, the process will be a great deal more complicated than you probably think it is. You can’t just drop babies off on people’s doorsteps and hope for the best.”

“And why not? They do it all the time in Dickens stories.”

Johona rolled her eyes in exasperation, but continued anyway. “Then what about Iris?”

_ Iris _ . Peter froze up the moment the maid’s name was mentioned. Cautiously, as if the question were loaded, he asked, “What about Iris?”

“She seems interested,” Johona elaborated. “You know better than anyone how much she cares about your situation. Why not ask her if she wants to take them?”

As the question passed his friend’s lips, Peter recalled what Iris had told him in the kitchen, late on a night that seemed so long ago. Before she came to live at the manor, she’d had next to nothing. Even now, he wasn’t sure how much better off she was. Unsteadily, he started to respond, “I-I really don’t know if that’s the best idea...”

“You’ll never know if you don’t bother asking,” Johona countered straightaway. Peter had nothing more to say on the matter, and that seemed to be the end of the argument.

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, and Kepler continued to play freely in the grass. Johona soon joined her, tickling the rabbit’s nose with blades of grass and giving her small twigs to chew on. Peter thought about her words as he watched the two of them and realized that Johona had a point that he couldn’t argue with. Iris really  _ did _ seem taken with him, or at the very least, his odd condition. He couldn’t ignore or make light of all the fawning questions that she asked him every day, the way her eyes softened whenever she looked at him, or the glow that lit up her face whenever she laid her hands on his belly. For all the interest that she showed, she might as well have spoken for the twins already.

It was only then that it dawned on him: There was a possibility, however small, that it wasn’t just his condition that Iris was interested in. Maybe, just maybe, she was interested in him as well.

* * *

Peter had been aware for some time that as his condition was progressing, his dreams were becoming stranger. He had a hard time placing a reason why. Stress, he hypothesized, or anxiety, maybe even guilt after receiving Babclock’s distressing letters. Regardless of the cause, his subconscious had been, for some time, showing him unthinkable things. The world in his head was always warped somehow, like reality itself was slowly losing its integrity. Sometimes there were people, ones he recognized and remembered. He’d reach out to them only to have them torn away by the waking world and for their names disappear from his lips when he opened his eyes. Occasionally, there was blood, and occasionally it was his. There was death, too. And sometimes, there were things even worse than nightmares that haunted him. Sometimes it was sweeter dreams that tortured him the most.

He was in the Tarnished Crown again, hiding in the corner booth. Delilah sat across from him, swirling dregs of absinthe in her glass. She was smiling drunkenly at him, and he knew he was beaming back. Her lips moved, speaking distorted words that didn’t make any sense to him, and a moment later they stretched into a devilish cheshire grin. The absinthe glass dropped from her hand, and he didn’t hear it hit the floor or shatter. She leaned over the edge of the table and planted her hands on its surface, bringing her face so close to his that her eyes filled his vision, faded blue mottled with green and grey. She mumbled something he didn’t understand, and then she slipped a little closer to him so that her lips brushed his ear.

“I know what you’re doing, although I don’t really understand why.”

Her breath was oddly cold, but he thought nothing of it. He closed his eyes to revel in the sound of her voice.

“You remember me,” she whispered. “You’re keeping me alive.”

She drew back from him, and when he opened his eyes, Ernest was perched before him, his legs kneeling on the booth seat and his arms balancing his body over the table. His deep teal eyes studied Peter with a strange, soft intensity. He lifted one hand up and cupped the side of Peter’s face in his palm, stroking his thumb gently over his cheek. The engineer nuzzled into his warm, callused touch.

“This was because of me,” Ernest said softly.

“I don’t know if it was,” Peter weakly contested. “I don’t know anything.”

“Are they mine or not?”

Peter didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to.

“You’re afraid,” Ernest murmured.

“I am,” Peter replied.

“But you know what the truth is. Somewhere deep, a place that maybe you can’t always reach, you remember.”

“I do.”

Ernest blinked. His eyes were foggy blue, and when he spoke, his voice was a distorted combination of hazy memories, like a twisted combination of Ernest and Delilah.

“That’s what keeps them alive. You can’t forget about us,” they whispered.

Peter choked, his throat clogged with emotion. “I... I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t.”

Ernest’s hand held Peter still as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. The inventor impulsively reached for him, his hands groping blindly for something to hold onto. He dug his fingers into Ernest’s unkempt hair and the stiff fabric of his jacket, pulling himself closer, pushing his mouth hard against the sailor’s. He tasted salt, liquor, then copper and chemicals. Something pulled him forward, over the edge of the table and across its flat expanse, the surface longer and colder than he remembered.

The hot sensation of a mouth pressed to his disappeared, and his eyelids flickered open. A pair of brown doe eyes stared down at him as he was sprawled flat on his back atop a lab table. There were hands caressing his face, fingers running through his hair, slender and delicate like Delilah, warm and worn like Ernest. They were a comfort against the icy steel of the slab.

Iris hovered over him, standing beside the table and leaning over the edge to stay close to him. He smiled at the sight of her, and she traced her fingertips along the lines that the expression dug into his face. “How does it balance out?” she softly asked. “You loved her. And he wanted you just as much.”

“But they’re gone,” he breathed. “Both of them.”

“And I’m still here. So what does that mean?”

“I can’t be sure.”

His words didn’t sound like a satisfying answer, but Iris smiled at him anyway. She brushed his cowlicked bangs away from his forehead, tenderly running her fingertips over the planes of his face. “You confuse me,” she whispered to him, her voice sweet in his ears. “But I can still admire you for what you’ve done.”

Then her face had lowered to meet his again, and their mouths were locked in a kiss. Peter’s hands moved to her face, her neck, her arms and waist, desperate to get closer. Iris braced herself against him and climbed onto the table, letting him pull her on top of himself. She covered him like a shield, like a living shelter, and he wanted to hide there, protected by her caring disposition and her capable hands for the rest of his days on Earth.

Iris’s hands wandered over his body, grasping at his shoulders, ghosting across his chest and his legs. Endorphins rushed in his blood, pulsing fast through his veins. She traced the lines of his hip, and then her fingertips drifted up, trailing along his waist. Her palm pressed itself flat against his stomach.

Something surged up from his core, crawling along his skeleton and pushing at the boundaries of his skin. Iris’s lips left his for a split second. He gasped for air, and gossamer threads of blue light drifted up from his mouth. He watched them with an absent fascination, too delirious to question them. Iris sighed above him, setting free threads of her own, letting them tangle in the sliver of space between them. Peter felt the heat of more glowing tendrils rising from his skin, fixing themselves to Iris, binding them together in a way he couldn’t begin to describe.

The threads of light pulled their lips close again, and they did nothing to fight the mysterious force. Iris kissed him with unholy passion, and he felt himself melting against her, dissolving like a caterpillar in a chrysalis to fuse with her and become something else entirely.

A strangled moan slipped from his lungs as he disappeared, and he woke up.

Peter bit back another cry as a sharp, searing ache flared up in his stomach. Sweat drenched his skin and the sheets that surrounded him. He recognized the feeling almost immediately. A moment passed before he realized that the pain wasn’t getting any worse, then it slowly began to ebb. He sighed with relief. He must have slept through the worst of it.

He rolled onto his side and held still, waiting for the waves of pain to subside. After it was over, he inched away from the damp spot where he had been lying and onto the cool, uninhabited side of the bed. The twins squirmed, and Peter carefully put a hand to his belly. His skin was hot, like something metal left out in the sun, though it didn’t burn enough to make him take his hand away. He laid still for a few more minutes, breathing deeply, staring at the glow from inside him, feeling the twins kick themselves into a new position and trying not to think. But eventually, his curiosity won out, and he thought.

He barely remembered the dream he’d been having. It had been strange, judging by the little that he could recall, and there had been people that he recognized. He’d known who they were when he saw them in his sleep, but as soon as he was conscious again, they were gone. Delilah had been there, but that was all he knew. If he had stayed asleep long enough to finish the dream, he might have known who had been involved, but he hadn’t been that fortunate. It must have been the pain from the episode that had woken him up.

This was the sixth one that he’d had. Even so many weeks after the first one, Johona still hadn’t been able to explain them. He felt like he should be troubled by that fact, but by then, there was so much in his life that couldn’t be explained, one more mystery seemed barely consequential. At least the pain wasn’t nearly as shocking to him anymore, and he knew vaguely how to manage it and keep himself from panicking like he had the first time.

Lazily, Peter let his hand slide across his abdomen. Its shape stood out like a paper cutout, jet black against bioluminescent blue. The memory of his dream pricked at the back of his mind like an abstract pin, and his heart shuddered. It disturbed him in a deep, inexplicable way, and he wanted to forget it as soon as he could. But at the same time, he didn’t. He wanted to try and dredge it up from the abyss of his mind, to study it and pick it apart and know more. He just wanted to  _ understand _ .

While his mind was wandering, one of the twins squirmed, and he was brought jarringly back to reality. He felt something tiny- a hand or a foot, he couldn’t tell- poking at his skin from the inside. It pressed outward,  _ hard _ , and a little shape bulged out from the smooth expanse of his skin. 

It was there only a second, and was gone the next, but Peter stared at the place it had been for a while afterward. He’d felt that the twins had been getting stronger lately, but that was the first time  _ that _ had ever happened.

Peter curled up as much as his misshapen body would let him, craning his neck on the pillow to look at the glowing swell of his stomach. He left his hand resting on top of it, gently drumming his fingers on his warm, taut skin. It perplexed him, the dynamic he seemed to have between himself and the babies. They were always thrashing wildly inside of him when he woke up from nightmares. They kicked at him when he thought of Delilah, whenever Johona teased him, whenever else he was feeling upset or helpless or overwhelmed. They moved whenever Iris was near, like they were reaching for her when she touched him.

“Why do you do it?” he unwittingly whispered to them. “How do you know?”

He felt them shift again, as if that was supposed to be some sort of answer. He didn’t understand it, though, so he kept on wondering until he fell asleep again.

* * *

The only way to know anything about Iris was to ask her directly. She kept quiet about most things and seemed to feel that any extensive words from her own lips had no place in a conversation. As far as she would say, her life was uninteresting. Her thoughts and opinions were of no consequence. If Peter ever had the opportunity, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her exactly how wrong she was.

Peter had come to learn a little about her in the months that she’d spent as his resident. And even though that was all he had- a little- it was just enough to convince him that there was more to her than she was letting on. She wasn’t only a dedicated maid. There seemed to be a genuine care and enthusiasm in her work. He felt that there was a reason why she took her performance beyond what an ordinary housekeeper would. There was even more to it than that. Something darker, he suspected. Her submissiveness seemed to run deeper than anything that mere training could instill. Then there was the matter of the twins. She’d been more open about that one lately, but there was still so much left unsaid, just like everything else that had to do with her.

There was more to know about Iris, and Peter was determined to find out exactly how much there was. Johona had made a point of reminding him that he had to come to a decision of some kind about what he would do once the twins were born. As much as it pained him to think about it, the longer he waited, the more urgent the matter would become. He was fast approaching 27 weeks. Johona had told him that if everything went as expected, he had until midwinter to make up his mind.

He’d been turning over the question of Iris in his head for days. For some time, he had been meaning to ask her about her thoughts on the twins. She always seemed to be the one asking him the questions, though, and she rarely gave clear answers of her own. He had simply never worked up the resolve to say anything. But he didn’t have time to hesitate anymore. 

He would speak to her that night. He’d make sure of it. But first, he would have to clear away the sharp-smelling remains of the day’s work.

In the bathroom mirror, as the tap filled the tub with warm water, Peter watched himself taking his clothes off. The change of his form still came as a shock to him, regardless of how many times he’d seen it before. It drew his eyes in like a train wreck; he found himself staring, unable to look away. 

The lines and shadows of his bones were gone, and his whole shape had filled out in a strange way. He was still lanky, since his predicament did nothing to change his height, but there was a defined, unsettling difference about his appearance. That didn’t even take into account his large, protruding stomach, which seemed to grow more every time that he looked at it.

He studied himself in the mirror, feeling all too aware of himself and how he had changed. The glow that he had noticed so many months before had become stronger. Even with the lights on, he could still make out the faint flush of bright blue that emitted from inside. Along the sides of his belly, just above his hips, a small arrangement of jagged, powder-blue lines had appeared. Johona had told him that they were perfectly normal, only a natural phenomenon that occurs when the skin stretches a large amount in a short span of time. They looked like scars, he thought, like some animal had scratched him and left behind gouges that never healed. 

Peter sighed and ran a hand over his abdomen. Warmth brushed against his palm as it ghosted across his skin. Even days after the last painful episode he’d had, his belly was still radiating heat. Once again, it was something for which Johona had no biological explanation. It was common, she said, for body temperature to be a little higher than normal during pregnancy, but this was different. The rise in heat didn’t exist anywhere else. It all seemed to be concentrated in one place, and it felt like a furnace attached to his body. Johona had joked that it would be useful soon, with winter only half a season away. And Iris... she hadn’t said very much, but Peter knew that she had felt it too.

Peter ripped his gaze away from the mirror and quickly went about washing away the chemical stains that stuck to his skin and hair. When he dressed again afterwards, he put on a new outfit instead of his pajamas. If he was going to approach Iris to talk about something so serious, he wanted to look at least halfway decent.

He found Iris in the library, carefully sorting some books he had brought into the library but never gotten around to reshelving. He could see that she had gone through the titles and purposely left a few off of the shelf. He spied the Jules Verne novel he had finished months before, then returned his gaze to the maid. She was still in her uniform, though her hair was unbound, falling into corkscrew curls that loosely grazed her shoulders like a low-flying storm cloud. 

Keeping his distance, he cleared his throat a little louder than normal. He wanted to get her attention, but the last thing he wanted to do was startle her.

Iris turned around immediately, registering his presence as if by instinct. Her eyes met with his, and she saw her fingers clutch a little tighter around the book in her hands. Her lips curled delicately into a shy smile.

“Hello, Iris,” he said warmly.

“Peter,” she cordially responded. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, not right now,’ he said, taking a few hesitant steps forward. “I mean, there is a reason that I’m here, but it’s not to give you orders. I-I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Iris subtracted a few more steps from the distance between them. “What is it?”

“Well...” Peter took a breath, trying to get his thoughts in order before he spoke. He found himself suddenly wishing that he’d taken the time to work out what he wanted to say before he tried to say it. “I’m sure that Johona’s been filling you in on my progress.”

Iris nodded. “She has.”

“And, um... well, she’s probably told you that I don’t have much time left.”

A look of worry flashed in the maid’s eyes for a second, but it was quickly ironed out. “P-pardon my boldness, b-but I don’t really see where you’re going with this.”

“Right. S-sorry, I only don’t have the best grasp on what I’m trying to say,” he continued. “What I mean is... I only have a few months left, and we still haven’t figured out what we’re going to do when the twins are born.”

The second that the twins were mentioned, a sparkle appeared in Iris’s eyes. She gazed wide-eyed at Peter, seeming bewildered in a strangely pleasant way. “What do I have to do with any of this?” she asked.

“Because I know how interested you are in this whole situation. I really don’t have any right to make speculations about you, but... You really seem to care about the twins. And since neither Johona nor I have made a plan for after they’re born, it only seems right that we get your input on what we decide to do.”

Iris’s fingers grasped the book so hard they turned pale. “Y-you want me to...”

“If you want to. I-I thought it would only be fair, because you... you care about them so much.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Iris, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I have to ask one thing. If you could... I mean, if there were no issues in the way, money or living space or anything else... would you want to...”

Peter’s throat tightened around his words and he trailed off, unable to finish. All of a sudden, there was a twisted pain in his belly. He felt the furnace in his core roaring to life, and in a moment’s realization, he knew what was coming.

Iris watched from a few feet away, waiting for him to continue, her eyes wide and fixed unwaveringly on him. Slowly, worry began to seep into them again. “Peter?” she cautiously asked. “What is it?”

He swallowed hard, trying to clear the congealing lump in his throat, as the burn in his stomach grew hotter. “It’s n-nothing,” he stammered, trying to sound collected. “Nothing out of the ordinary, i-it’s only...”

His stomach convulsed, cutting him short again. Peter gasped at the sharp, sudden pain. Out of instinct, his hands went to his belly, as if they could somehow contain everything. His palms burned against his skin. Iris was staring at him. She could see the light that glowed from inside him, he knew she could, and she could see it getting brighter.

In a flurry of movement, she rushed to him, holding her hands out before him like she wanted to steady him but was too afraid to try. “P-Peter, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked desperately. A second later, abject horror leached into her expression. “Is it the twins? What’s happening?”

“I-I don’t know, I just...” he tried to say in between gasps of air, but one look at Iris’s face told him that nothing he said was making the situation better. Against the rapid bursts of pain, he tried to catch his breath and explain a little better. “Th-this has happened before, don’t... don’t worry. I-I’ll... I’ll be fine in a few-  _ Fuck! _ ” The exclamation shot out of his lungs as heat exploded outward from his core with enough force to nearly knock him over. Iris caught him, and he found himself leaning weakly against her, his legs seeming pathetically unstable as the pulsating ache overtook his body.

In a second, Iris’s arms were around his ribs, and she was gently leading him toward the fainting couch. “H-here. Don’t stand,” she gently instructed as she helped him stagger forward. One of her hands accidentally brushed across his burning abdomen, and she squeaked in surprise and quickly pulled it back. 

Peter collapsed gratefully onto the couch and looked up at Iris, whose startled eyes were flicking back and forth between him and her scorched hand. “I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “Th-that happens... whenever... whenever this does.”

The apology seemed hardly necessary. There was nothing but worry etched into Iris’s face, as if she barely even registered the fact that he had burned her. “A-are you sure you’re okay, Peter? I-I’ll get Johona, we can fix this, w-we can...”

“I-it’s fine,” Peter said quickly, trying to sound reassuring. “Sh-she knows about this. I’ll be okay, I just... I only need a f-few minutes, and th-then I...  _ Goddammit. _ I just have to wait until it passes, a-and then- Ow,  _ Christ _ !” He hissed through his teeth and dug his fingers into the cushion as his body pulsed in agony. He curled up on the couch, giving into the painful spasms in his belly, hoping that letting himself collapse would take away the edge. It didn’t, though, and he found himself holding down more curses and complaints, though there didn’t seem to be a point; he was sure that Iris already knew him to be a weak, sensitive fool.

As the thought crossed his mind, the maid sat down beside him on the fainting couch and placed a hand on his shoulder. Gathering his resolve, he raised his head to look at her. He expected to find disappointment, maybe impatience in her eyes, but all he found there was pure, genuine fear. Her voice quivered as she spoke. “Peter, a-are you sure you’re alright?”

“Y-yes,” he assured her, although his chest heaved with each breath. “I j-just... need to wait...” His voice caught in his throat, and a strangled cry escaped his mouth. The twins had started their frenzied kicking, and suddenly he felt that much worse. He clutched tighter to the cushions, trying to hold himself together. “S-sorry, I c-can’t talk...”

“Then don’t.”

Iris’s hand had somehow found his, and their fingers had twined together. Peter held onto it as if his life depended on it. His fingers squeezed hers so tightly he feared her bones would break, but Iris didn’t seem to care. She kept her free hand on his shoulder, rubbing her thumb in circles like she was trying to calm him. His body flared with pain again, the twins thrashed, and he let a low, agonized groan slip out. Iris squeezed his hand back, as if to assure him that she was still there. He looked at her, still sore and panting, and was surprised to find hope in her eyes. She brushed her thumb over his. Even as he swallowed another cry of pain, it felt just a little easier to manage.

A few minutes passed, and the burning began to subside, just as Peter had said it would. “I-I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “I meant to tell you about this sooner, I just... I never seem to remember these things when I’m supposed to.”

“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?” Iris asked. Her hand was still wrapped around his.

“This is the seventh time,” he listlessly explained. “I wouldn’t say it’s something frequent, but it  _ is _ something that happens. Though the last one I had was only a few days ago, and I’ve never had an episode this close to another one before.” He pressed his hand to his forehead and dug his fingers into his hair. “I can’t be sure what any of it means.

The library was quiet for a short time while he caught his breath and his searing skin slowly cooled down. The twins still refused to calm their frantic squirming. Iris sat still and studied him, watching every rise and fall of his chest. One baby rolled over the other, Peter inhaled sharply at the feeling, and a miniscule foot pressed up against his skin. He glanced over at Iris to see that her eyes had widened in surprise, and he knew that she had seen it too. Then she reached out and gently laid her hand onto his belly. He felt the small creatures inside respond, pushing at the boundaries that contained them. Iris swept her hand in a small, slow circle, trailing her thumb across Peter’s shirt. He recognized the motion. He’d seen it before. And when Iris began whispering to the restless twins, shushing and reassuring them, he realized that it was because he’d done it to himself.

“This why I wanted to talk to you,” he quietly said as the kicking finally slowed.

Iris raised her gaze to meet his and quickly pulled her hand away from him. “I-I’m terribly sorry about that,” she mumbled unsteadily, locking her twitching fingers together to keep them still. “I-I wasn’t thinking, i-it was just... a-an impulse. I should have asked.”

“You know I don’t mind that anymore, don’t you?” Peter tried to sound reassuring, but Iris still kept her eyes focused apologetically on the floor. He sighed. “I came here to talk about you and the twins. And... well, about what you want the future to be like, in terms of you and them.”

Finally, it was safe enough for Iris to look him in the eyes again. She seemed even more surprised than the first time. “Th-the future?” she echoed, awestruck. “I... I really don’t know what to say.”

“Say whatever you feel like saying. Tell me what you want to happen. Imagine it. If you were to have everything go perfectly, from your perspective, what would we do after the twins are born?”

“U-um... I...” Iris choked, and she stared blankly at Peter, as if she failed to remember what words were and how they worked. “W-what... what should I say?”

_ Typical _ , Peter thought, but he wouldn’t allow himself to become irritated. “Iris, this isn’t about me,” he clarified. “I’m asking  _ you _ what  _ you _ think the best course of action would be.”

“But what does it matter what I think?” Iris responded, almost too quickly. Then words were spilling out of her mouth in a trembling waterfall, stammering, stilted and, underneath it all, frightened. “Th-they aren’t my children, Peter. I-I have no right deciding  _ anything _ about them. I-It isn’t my place to t-tell you what to do, I d-don’t give orders, and y-you  _ know _ that. I can’t tell you to-”

“Iris, stop. Please.”

“I-I just...”

She stared at him, transfixed, her hands balled into tight fists and clinging to her skirt. Her eyes were gleaming again, though not in the bright, sparkling way that they were before. She blinked, and he noticed the raw glimmer of tears pooling around their edges. 

“I just don’t know what to say,” she breathed. “I  _ have _ nothing to say.”

Her words clawed at Peter’s heart. He suddenly wished that he hadn’t let go of her hand so quickly. It seemed like she needed hers held even more than he did. “Why do you always answer questions like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” Iris was speaking around a lump in her throat. He could hear it in her voice.

“Like you’re afraid to give an answer that’s really your own. You do it almost every time I ask you about anything, and I’ve never understood why. What are you so scared of? That you’ll end up telling me something I don’t want to hear? Because at this stage in my life, I’ve had to hear so many unpleasant things, anything you say to me is only another drop in the ocean.”

Iris looked away from him and chewed nervously at her lip, and Peter knew she would be unwilling to answer. But he was tired of giving up. He’d be damned if he did it again.

Cautiously, he reached out and traced his fingers along Iris’s chin, gently turning her face back to him. She listlessly complied and let her eyes lock with his. His hand lingered for a second, fingertips ghosting across her cheek, before he took his arm back and spoke again. “Let’s try this a different way, then,” he said softly. “You’ve been living here for a long time now, and I wish I could say that I knew you better, but I don’t. But if there is one thing that I  _ am _ sure of, it’s that you care. You care about your work, and about this house, about the twins, and...” He hesitated. “And about  _ me _ . You can’t tell me that you don’t.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head in agreement. “I do.”

“I know you do. I can tell.”

“I care more than I should.”

“ _ Should _ has nothing to do with this,” Peter reminded her. “My point is that you care very deeply about the situation that we’re in. The one thing that I’ve never been able to figure out is why.” Iris seemed to be fading into herself as he spoke. He took her hand to get her attention again and found that she was trembling. “I want to know, Iris. I need to.”

A quivering smile pulled at Iris’s lips. “I-It’s just in your nature to wonder about these things, isn’t it?”

“Suppose it is,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Tell me why.”

Iris still hesitated. She sniffed and pressed her free hand to her mouth. When it came away, it was damp. She took a deep, shaking breath. “I-I’ve always wanted children,” she murmured. “But... I’ll never be able to have my own.”

“Never?” Peter breathlessly repeated. 

“Never.”

“Why not?”

“Th-there are only too many reasons,” she unsteadily explained. “Men don’t like me. I don’t have enough money. I’m not fit to marry anymore. And...” She wiped at the tear stains on her cheek as if they were a minor inconvenience. “It’s... It’s a long story. I’m not sure it’s one you’d want to hear.”

“I  _ do _ want to hear it,” Peter insisted, his face lighting up with an enthusiastic smile. “I want to hear everything that you have to say. Tell me everything you can, or... or I’ll sit here all night and keep asking questions. I’ll ask you so many questions, you’ll lose your mind before morning.”

Iris laughed, forcing a few more tears from her eyes. “Fine, fine. I’ll... I’ll tell you everything, if you want me to. Everything I can remember.”

Peter’s smile brightened, and he settled himself into the couch, ready to listen. “Start at the beginning,” he said.

“It was such a long time ago, though.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m listening.”

“Well... you know that most girls dream of being mothers one day,” Iris began. “So I suppose, in that way, I wasn’t any different from anyone else. Only... this wasn’t just something I naturally wanted. My parents...” She paused, recollecting her thoughts. “I’m sorry, you’re going to be so lost unless you understand. I’ve never told you where I’m from.”

Peter pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, you haven’t.”

“I was born in Mississippi,” she stated.

Peter’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “But you don’t sound like...” He was about to say  _ You don’t sound like you’re from Mississippi _ when he realized that he’d probably never knowingly even heard what a Mississippi accent sounded like.

“I’ve been a lot of different places since then, and along the way I learned to talk without the accent,” Iris explained. “But I’m getting sidetracked. I was talking about my parents.”

Peter nodded wordlessly. The last thing he wanted to do was interrupt her.

“You see, my parents worked on a farm that was owned by a big agricultural company. A plantation, that was what they called it. My father worked the grounds, and my mother was a maid in the house. They trained me to be a maid, too. I was around four or five when I started, I think.”

“When you were  _ five _ ?” Peter couldn’t help it. The words had slipped out before he could stop them.

“Well, we couldn’t really afford for my mother to stay home, and schools were hard to come by where we lived. And if I was working with her, she could keep an eye on me and earn wages at the same time. It was the best we could do. Even as hard as the work was, we needed everything we took home to keep the house together. A-and the job wasn’t easy. Not on any of us. They’d work my father half to death every day, and I remember the ladies of the house were so awful to my mother. They would scream at her, and hit her, and blame her for things she didn’t do. And the planter’s sons, they would leer at her while she worked and...” She trailed off for a second. “Mama didn’t tell any of us what they did until after we left.”

A block of ice congealed in Peter’s chest. He didn’t need to ask what she was referring to. He’d learned enough about history and heard any number of horror stories about the atrocious things that had happened to women like Iris’s mother. Trying to stave off the subject, he asked, “And what about you?”

“They didn’t treat me very much different,” Iris said listlessly. “Most of what the people in the house did to Mama, they did to me. Not... not  _ everything _ , obviously, but most things.” She nodded to herself, as if confirming facts in her mind. “That was the big reason why we left, actually. One night, when I was seven, things got out of hand. I made a mistake, something got broken, they decided to punish me right on the spot, and when I came home and took my shoes off, Mama saw that there was blood all over my socks. She looked me over, and I was all bruised and cut up, and when she told Papa what she saw... that was when they drew the line.”

“And then what happened?” Peter was almost afraid to ask, but he did anyway.

“We got our savings together, packed up everything we had and left.”

“And that was the end of it?”

Iris bit her lower lip and shook her head. “N-no, I’m afraid not. It was... it was far from the end. Y-you see, Peter...” She hesitated before going on. “We weren’t really in any position to be leaving the plantation. I-I told you that the reason we stayed was because we needed the money. So after Mama and Papa resigned and we headed north, things were... they were a lot more difficult. For a long time.”

Peter didn’t dare ask what she meant by that. 

“They found work eventually, though,” she went on. “Before long we were even bringing in enough money to let me go to school. Even after things got better, though, I never forgot.” She brought her knees up to her chest and wound her arms around her legs, hugging them close. “I knew that I was the reason that Mama and Papa stayed at that plantation for as long as they did. I was the reason they left, too. They never told me to my face, but I could tell. All they ever wanted was to make a decent life for me. They let the people at the plantation break them day after day so they could keep a roof over my head, and then they left because they wouldn’t have those same people hurting their little girl.”

Iris’s voice cracked, and she pressed her mouth into her knees to stifle a weak sob that threatened to break free. She reached up and hastily swiped at the tear stains on her cheeks that had been replenished every few seconds. “A-and all I wanted...” she choked out, her voice wavering. “All I wanted s-since then... W-was to make them proud. I... I wanted to be j-just like them when I grew up. I w-wanted... I wanted to know... That everything they sacrificed, a-and all the love they showed me was worth something. I-I wanted...” She held back another sob. “I wanted to know that I was capable of loving someone like that, too.”

She didn’t say another word beyond that. The library was deathly quiet for a second, and a second was all that Peter was able to take. With every word that Iris spoke, he felt his heart splintering for her. Without thinking, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “You can, Iris,” he softly insisted. “You can. You  _ do _ .”

Iris shivered at his touch, but didn’t shy away. “N-no, Peter, you don’t understand...”

“Then make me understand.” He gently brushed a few mahogany curls away from her face and tried to wipe away a few of her tears with his thumb. “What am I still missing?”

“I told you,” she sighed. “I can’t have children. There was something that happened, a long time ago...” Just as she was beginning, she stopped herself and shook her head. “If I tell you, we’ll be here all night.”

“That’s fine,” he said, shifting a little closer.

“I won’t be offended if you fall asleep.”

“I’ll do my best not to.” He smiled a little and nodded downward. “Even if I do, I’m fairly sure  _ they _ would wake me.”

Iris laughed a little at that. “Do they want to hear the story too?”

A knowing smile brightened on Peter’s face, and he placed a hand on his belly. “Even if they don’t understand, I can tell you they’ve been listening.”

Iris leaned in a little towards him, bringing her eyes level with his midsection. She gazed at him for a moment, her eyes swimming with wonderment. He saw her hands twitch with the urge to touch him. Still fixated on his stomach, she sighed and nodded. “Alright,” she murmured. “It was a few years ago, only a little while after I came to California.”

“And when did you come to California?”

“A bit more than ten years ago. I was eighteen when I finally left home. Home was Chicago, at the time,” she elaborated. “I was finished with school, and I was bringing in enough money from maid service to set out on my own. I thought that things might be a little easier out in the far west, since that seemed to be where all the forward-thinking people went. So I saved up and traveled. I worked in one place and another, and soon I found San Diego. I worked on different days in a few different estates, and I was making enough money to rent my own room. Things were going really well for a while, actually, before...”

“Before?” Peter asked when she trailed off.

Iris collected herself and started over. “I was twenty-two. And I at that point, I felt like I was ready to... you know. I wanted to find somebody, maybe settle down if I could. I met a few men, and even though none of them lasted, I thought I was doing well. But then... I was walking home from the post office one day, after mailing a letter to my parents, and the trolley was going by... It must have slid on its tracks or something, or maybe the driver hit the brakes too fast. I don’t really know, and no one ever found out. All I remember is that one second I was stepping off the sidewalk, and the next, I was waking up in the street. People were shouting, and I saw blood, and...” Her voice started to strain again. “And I was in so much pain...”

“Oh, god,” Peter murmured. One of the twins stirred uncomfortably.

“They took me to a hospital,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “The doctor told me I had organ damage, and the only thing they could do was...” Iris fell short of ending the sentence and swallowed the remaining words. She seemed determined not to cry again. “When I woke up after the ether wore off, I was all stitched up and everything was gone. They told me right away what they did, and that I’d never be able to do what I’d spent years wanting to do. Then I had to take all this time to heal up. I couldn’t leave the hospital, so I couldn’t work, and all the money that I had earned and saved up since I left home... it was gone, too. Every cent of it went to the hospital expenses. I sold my apartment. I went to Saint Bernadette’s. Miriam hired me, and then I came to work for you.”

Peter stared at her for a long time after she stopped speaking. His mind was reeling to wrap around the facts. He’d thought that learning she lived in a church had been shocking, but this...  _ This _ was unspeakable.  _ This _ wasn’t something that any single person should have to go through. 

“But...” he said absently, grasping at straws in the hope that there was something,  _ anything _ about Iris that still had some sense of hope to it. “But... even if you couldn’t have children, you still could have found someone. You still have that.” Yes, yes, that had to be it. Even with a few pieces missing, Iris still had her heart and soul. Anyone with her personality would be so easy to fall in love with. Someone as sweet as her, someone so genuine and loyal... Love was still a possibility. It had to be. Hadn’t it?

Iris all but laughed at the suggestion. “You obviously haven’t seen the scars,” she sharply replied.

“Scars?” he echoed. The word drove the steely feeling of sorrow even deeper into his chest. 

“Yes, scars.” Iris drew back and sat staring at the floor, her hands twisted in her lap. “They’re... well, the surgery had to be done fast, so the incisions were... a little messy.” She looked down at herself and traced a fingertip across the front of her dress. “All along here. They cover almost everything. And they’ve scared away any number of men in their time.”

“Is that why you said...”

“Why I said men don’t like me?” she finished for him. “Yes, that’s why. Because I’m ugly, and I’d be useless as a wife. I’d... I’d be the worst...”

“Iris.” Peter reached out for her, even as she slumped over forward and buried her head in her hands. He wrapped his hands around her shoulders and tried to pull her up again. “Iris, stop. Don’t say that about yourself.”

She went limp as he brought her back up, listlessly obeying every instruction that his hands gave her. It felt wrong, all of it did, and Peter didn’t know what he could do to make it right. He was still thrown by everything she said, everything she’d done and had to do, and what she’d been forced to feel, emotions of which he could only catch the faintest traces. He slipped his hands under Iris’s chin and cupped her face in his hands, holding her there until her eyes finally found his.

“You are not ugly,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to hear you say that ever again. And if anyone tells you that you are, don’t believe them.”

Iris nodded, and for a second things seemed to be normal again. “I won’t,” she whispered. “I promise.”

Peter smiled, though the feeling was bittersweet. “You’re perfectly fine the way you are,” he said, and he let his hands drift down from her face, though one stayed perched on her shoulder.  “Besides, by now I know a thing or two about being ugly, and you really don’t fit the description.”

“What?” Iris nearly laughed as the word slipped out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Iris. You can’t tell me that you’ve never looked at me since coming here and felt... I don’t know.  _ Unnerved _ by anything?”

“What would I have to be unnerved by?”

“What would you have to...” he parroted back to her, sounding sharp at first, but the words quickly dissolving into a laugh. “Iris. I’m  _ pregnant _ , if you haven’t noticed. That isn’t something that’s supposed to happen. People like me aren’t supposed to...” He glanced down at his distended belly. “Well, unless I were an old drunk, it wouldn’t exactly be natural for me to look like this.”

“But that’s what makes you different from me,” Iris said. “You have a reason. You’re doing something extraordinary. And no matter what you look like, in the end, it’s all because you were able to do something that the rest of the world wouldn’t even dream was possible.”

Peter felt the warmth of a blush rising to his face. “B-but... that still doesn’t change how wrong it all looks on me.”

“Of course it does.” Iris set her hand on Peter’s shoulder, the same as he’d done so many times to comfort her, and he felt his heart spasm with gratitude. “It changes everything. You’re... you’re beautiful.”

Time seemed to slow around them. Peter stared at Iris, his eyes wide and stunned. All he saw in her face was the truth; she genuinely believed every word she said to him. The warmth in his chest rose as the realization sank in. No one had ever told him he was beautiful before. He didn’t believe it, the way he was now. He probably wouldn’t even have believed it months ago, if anyone had been around to tell him. It didn’t seem right to take the compliment, not when he had so much doubt embedded in his soul. But one look at Iris’s face, her liquid brown eyes gazing softly into his, and everything seemed to melt away.

Smiling, he brought his hand up to meet with hers. “I guess neither of us are really right, are we?”

“I guess we aren’t,” Iris agreed, lacing her fingers through his. “But if you can live with that, I think I can live with it too.”

The room was quiet a while longer, the only sound being Peter’s heartbeat ringing in his ears. Iris’s hand felt warm wrapped around his. He felt heat simmering in his chest, not in the fiery way, like the way he burned from the inside when an episode struck, but a far different kind of warmth. It was pleasant. Comforting, even.

“You never have seen the scars, though,” Iris murmured, breaking the silence.

Peter looked quizzically at her. There was implication there, but he wasn’t sure if he was reading it right. “I haven’t,” he replied. 

“If you still want to know...” She trailed off, and he knew that he’d guessed correctly.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I’ve already told you everything else,” she said. “And if you really want to understand, I wouldn’t mind.”

He hesitated for a second. “Well... It’s true, I don’t understand how something like a scar could be weighted so heavily.”

“It isn’t just a scar,” Iris shyly corrected him. “It’s... It’s a lot of them. All in one place.”

“Really,” was Peter’s only reply, and he left it up to Iris to decide what to do next.

Slowly, the maid stood up from the fainting couch and took a few steps away. She moved methodically, as if the situation were rehearsed. “I’ll need to take my corset off, if you want to see,” she warned.

“I won’t look,” he replied. To prove the point, he scooted around to face the wall on the other side of the room. “Just let me know when I can turn around.”

He heard Iris sigh, then respond with a resigned, “Okay.”

Peter stared at the wall for a few solid minutes, listening to the sounds of rustling fabric and Iris breathing behind him. She seemed to be having trouble with something, probably her corset, and a small part of him wanted to help, but everything else in his head warned him that offering to give Iris a hand with taking her clothes off was probably a bad move.

“Okay,” Iris timidly said after the fabric had stopped rustling for some time. “You can look now, if you still want to.”

Peter felt compelled to turn around slowly. He first spied Iris in the corner of his vision, standing with a smear of off-white in the middle. Then he was sitting as he was before, and he found her standing a few feet away from the couch. Her dress had been unbuttoned down to the small of her back, the top half folded over just below her navel. She was clutching a plain linen corset to her chest, held flat and sideways to cover her breasts. Peter’s eyes drifted to the expanse of ash-brown skin just below, and all of a sudden his breath seemed to evade him.

The skin of her torso, the same skin that was smooth everywhere else that he could see, was crumpled like a piece of scrap paper. Long, jagged lines were etched into her skin, like wounds inflicted by a huge wild beast. They stood out, whether darker or paler, always more shriveled than the rest of her. The mass of scars twisted around one another like some kind of perverted embroidery, forming knots of destroyed tissue all across her body. Peter stood up and took a tentative step forward, but he stopped. It wasn’t a given, that Iris would want him to come any closer. He didn’t know what he should do.

“Hideous, isn’t it?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“It looks like it still hurts,” he breathlessly replied.

“It doesn’t.” Her fingers dug into the laces of her corset. “Not most of the time.”

Peter’s eyes flicked back and forth between Iris’s face and her ruined body. She watched him just as intently, and he knew that she was looking for signs of revulsion, disgust, anything that would tell her that he would think everything that she’d feared he would. He wouldn’t let her see that in him. Iris had been through more than she deserved in her lifetime. 

He braved another few steps forward and reached cautiously out to her, letting his hand hover a few inches from her skin. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” she replied. “You let me do it to you.”

With her admission, he trailed his fingers along the crumpled lines. They felt rough and uneven against his fingertips. It wasn’t unlike anything he had felt before. He’d seen scars on people, from chemical burns and lab accidents, even a few small marrings people had been born with. And underneath it all, he knew that it was only skin. It was only Iris. 

She was soft, he realized. Her scars were soft, warm and genuine, just like the rest of her.

“So this is what those men were all so afraid of?” he asked. The question seemed almost laughable to him now.

“Well... I suppose it’s a little worse, when you aren’t expecting it,” she mused. “And usually, when someone first saw them, it was when-”

“You don’t have to explain.” He knew well enough what she was talking about. It was an experience that he had been through before. People could to become incredibly shallow when they were aroused.

He ran his fingers over the scars one more time and met Iris’s eyes again. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” she shyly asked.

“Because there really isn’t anything to say.”

“You don’t... think anything of them?”

“No.”

“You don’t think they’re...”

His lips pulled up in a faint smile. “If you wanted me to be repulsed, you could have just told me.” 

That drew a small laugh out of Iris, and the gratefulness in her eyes made Peter’s heart flutter. “W-well, if there isn’t anything else...”

“You can put your dress back on now,” he assured her.

Iris nodded, and the two of them resumed their positions, Peter facing the opposite wall and Iris fiddling with her garments behind his back. This time, however, the whispery breathing and frenetic fabric-rustling felt to last much longer than the first time. Peter thought he could hear Iris huffing every now and again with each breath as strings were zipped through grommets. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped.

“Um... Peter?”

He fought the urge to turn around. “What is it?”

“My corset,” she replied. “I’m, er... having a hard time lacing it up again.”

“You can leave it off, if that would make things easier.”

A little gasp slipped from her mouth. “C-could I?”

All of a sudden, Peter realized what he’d said. He’d thought nothing of it when the words had rolled out, hadn’t for a second considered what they might mean to someone who hadn’t known the Cavalcadium. He berated himself, mentally bashing his head against the wall. What had he said that for? Why had he told her that? Most importantly, what did it sound like to Iris? But it was too late to take it back, so the best he could do was try and smooth things out. “Of course. It’s late anyway, and you have no one to impress here.” 

“Alright,” Iris quietly said after a tense, silent moment. He heard her shrug her arms back into the sleeves of her dress, and the rustling seemed to go much more quickly this time. “Peter?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to ask you, but I’m having a bit of trouble with the buttons on the back. Would you mind if...”

“Oh?” On impulse, he glanced over his shoulder. Iris was looking at him again. Her dress was most of the way on, only a little loose around the collar. “Y-yes, of course,” he replied, and Iris turned her back to him. The buttons between her shoulder blades and the nape of her neck were undone. He came closer to her and started fastening them. 

Iris smelled like dust and flour, a little like the kitchen, a little like the worn pages of the books that surrounded them. Peter gasped a little as his stomach brushed against her back. He took half a step back. “I-I’m sorry about that,” he quickly apologized. “I’m just... still not used to it.”

“It’s fine,” Iris assured him. She was smiling when she turned around to face him. One of her hands had found its way to his belly again, and he felt the responsive stir in his core.

“Listen, Iris,” he started to say. “I know that... Everything you told me couldn’t have been easy to talk about.”

“I only never told you because I didn’t think you were interested.”

“Oh,” he murmured. Everything she said seemed to strike a chord with him somewhere. “I always was. I only didn’t want to pry. But if you want to...” He paused, and remembered the whole reason he had wanted to speak to Iris in the first place. “Do you want them?”

Immediately Iris’s hand froze. Her head snapped upright, her eyes wide and glassy like brown marbles. “Y-you mean... the twins?” she murmured.

“Yes. That was what I’d come to ask you, but... I suppose I forgot, when I started asking other questions.” He carded his fingers into his hair. “I just can’t keep my thoughts in order.”

“I...” Iris let her gaze fall to his abdomen, where she seemed to have forgotten her hand was still resting. “I would... I really would, but you know that I can’t. I don’t have enough to...”

“Then I’ll give you enough,” he cut in, taking her free hand in his own. “Whatever you need. Money. A place to live. If this is what you want, Iris, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

“And to help them?” she quietly asked, stroking her thumb over his belly.

“And to help them,” he echoed back to her.

Iris’s lips parted, as if she wanted to say something more, but no sound left them, only a soft exhale of awe. She stared up at Peter, her doe eyes gleaming, and for a second he feared that she would start to cry again. Then her hand slid around his waist and she fell forward against him, burying her face into his chest. “Peter...” she whispered.

He let go of her hand and put his arms around her, holding her close. “I know,” he said softly to her. “I know.” And he did. At long last, he felt like he did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me cavities. I hope it does something like that for you.  
> And here I am, signing off at 2:19 AM with a migraine and a severe imbalance in the hours I've spent awake and asleep in the past few days.  
> I hope you liked this, reader. I know I did.  
> I'm a fucking narcissist, aren't I.  
> See you next chapter.


	15. A Brief Repose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! was five days ago.  
> I am so tired. I am so tired all the time.  
> It's half an hour after midnight, but I don't know when else this chapter is going to happen. And I've barely gotten any writing done at all on the later bits of the story. Maybe I'll stick to this new schedule of updating because trying to do it every week puts me at risk of running out of material before the story is actually finished. And look what happend to TMIU when that became a problem for that story. It's been nearly a year and not a single update.  
> And that was a story that people actually liked. What the fuck am I doing with my life?  
> Listen. I'm aware that no one is reading this story. I know that the subject matter of ALAOUT isn't everybody's cup of tea. In fact, it's hardly anyone's, and I haven't for one second stopped being extremely ashamed of what I've written. But regardless of all of that, I'm still going to finish and post it. You know why? Because I enjoy stupid things. Stupid things, like stories about a guy who got pregnant from doing too much drunk science.  
> So here's a short little update, just to get it out of my headspace. Just this once, fuck the plugs. Not like anyone's using them anyway.  
> Onward.

 

Halfway through October, things finally seemed to be falling in line. 

Johona had a steady stream of work from the hospital. As she kept track, she notified Peter that she would have more than enough to pay back her expenses if or when she returned to Willcox. Iris seemed more at ease than ever in the manor. Her passive awkwardness had been gradually fading, and every time she met Peter’s eyes, he found her smiling. Kepler had settled nicely into the household, and Taggart Babclock hadn’t sent another letter since the one that had arrived with her. It seemed that the response that Peter had sent had been convincing enough. Peter’s blue matter experiments seemed to be gaining some kind of momentum, and his retrieval processes were going much more smoothly. The first automaton was nearly finished, and her core almost operational. The second was well on his way, and the third was coming together even faster than the first two.

As for Peter himself, he had found his own esoteric kind of serenity. For the first time since the May, he felt like there was some kind of positivity in his life. He’d been crawling through darkness for a while, but he’d finally found the light at the end of the tunnel. At long last, he had a future to look forward to. Only a few more months, he estimated. Then his ordeal would end. Johona would finally be able to go home. Iris would be happy. And in a way, that meant he would be happy, too.

When Johona was out during the day, he’d gotten into the habit of keeping Kepler in his lab. He told himself that it wasn’t out of any particular fondness for the rabbit. It was only because she gave him something to listen to while he worked. The soft, sporadic noise of her shuffling around in her hutch was a vast improvement over the mechanical hum of the boiler.

It was the afternoon, and while Peter was busy calibrating the sprockets that would lend the silver automaton’s body a little flexibility, Kepler toyed with a string of bells that Iris had threaded through the chicken wire of her hutch. She tugged at one, it jingled, and Peter looked up from his work at the noise. Kepler froze and stared at him, as if she were embarrassed that he’d caught her playing. It was kind of an amusing thought.

“You enjoying yourself?” Peter asked. Kepler responded by sitting down on the floor of her hutch and inching back. He smiled casually at her. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

He tried to get back to work, but when Kepler didn’t resume her playing and the silence continued. He looked at her hutch again. She was still staring at him. Peter watched her for a moment, glanced down at his work, sighed and decided that it was probably a good time for him to take a break.

With more effort than it should have taken, he scooted his rolling stool back and stood up. He groaned and pressed a hand to the small of his back. He’d been sitting at the slab for hours, and his spine was aching already. His stomach had become alarmingly heavy in the past few weeks. The development had happened slowly, but its side effects had taken hold of him fast. His whole body felt thrown off by it, but by then, feelings of imbalance were nothing new to him.

Ignoring the strain in his muscles, Peter went to the sink to wash the oil stains from his hands and made his way over to Kepler’s hutch. The rabbit hopped forward and pressed her face to the chicken wire. He poked at her velvety nose with a finger, and she sniffed at it for a second before giving it an experimental nibble. It made him laugh a little, and Kepler started at the sound. She kicked around her straw bedding and leaned up against the chicken wire with her front paws.

“Are you bored?” Peter asked. Kepler didn’t respond, but when he put his hand on the latch of her enclosure door, she shuffled over to it and sat a few inches behind, seemingly waiting.

He unlatched the door and offered his hands up for Kepler to climb into. She inched closer but didn’t seem inclined to leap out herself, so he reached in and pulled her through the opening. Kepler wriggled a little until he was holding her properly, then promptly climbed over his arm and onto his shoulder. She snuffled directly in his ear, and Peter was laughing again. “H-hey, quit that! It tickles!” he scolded her, but the words barely sounded like he meant them. 

Kepler scooted down from her perch and settled back onto his forearms. She held still long enough for Peter to flex one of his wrists around to scratch the spot of fur between her ears. Her eyes squinted shut, and she buried her nose into the crook of his elbow. With the rabbit finally calm, Peter carried her away from her hutch and leaned back against a lab table to take a bit of strain off of his back. She was extraordinarily silky, he noted, as he had many times before. The rabbit’s fur was soft and ruffled like fresh cotton between his fingers. Johona had done a splendid job of rehabilitating her.

The stillness only lasted a moment, though. Before long, Kepler’s eyes were open again, and she was snuffling all along Peter’s arm and trying to climb back up to her perch, catching her claws on the sleeves of his lab coat. “Whoa, there,” he said warningly. He tried to regain his hold on the slippery rabbit. “Hold still. I don’t want to drop you.”

Kepler didn’t seem to be listening, though, and she continued to scrabble at his chest with her feet. Peter tried to grab her again, before she launched herself off his shoulder and landed on an unfinished automaton or something even worse. She made it a few inches higher before Peter finally caught her properly. Still, she gave one more thrash in a last-ditch effort to escape. Peter’s fingers slipped but didn’t let go, and Kepler’s feet collided with his stomach.

Peter gasped and lurched forward, still clutching Kepler to his chest. The impact felt like a strike from a hot coal fired through a peashooter, and maybe he wouldn’t have minded as much if his whole body wasn’t already a wreck. At least the rabbit had stopped fighting him. Now she was sprawled against him, startled, and he quickly started to reposition her, but he only made it halfway before he felt a sharp kick from inside.

He balanced Kepler on one arm and let her perch on his shoulder if she wanted. His other hand pressed against his belly as another kick pushed outward against his skin. One of the twins was retaliating. They must not have liked Kepler invading their personal space.

Peter set Kepler down on an empty counter and waited for the twins to calm down. It didn’t take long, since the apparent threat to their space was gone. After they had been still for a short while, Peter poked experimentally at his belly. The vague outline of a tiny foot pushed out against his fingertip. The other twin shifted in protest of its sibling’s movements, and Peter burst out laughing at the feeling. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Kepler was staring at him.

“What are you looking at?” he quipped at the rabbit. “Maybe you’ve never been bred before. If you had, you wouldn’t be gawking at me like that.”

Kepler twitched her nose and scooted away from him, hopping down the length of the counter. Peter followed her, making sure she didn’t fall or run into anything dangerous. Johona had told him before that rabbits required a certain amount of exercise every day. It was probably a good thing that Kepler was getting some time outside of her hutch, but his friend would probably maim him if he allowed anything to happen to her.

Somewhere far above them, there was a knock on the door to the lab. Peter lifted Kepler up from the counter and started towards the stairs to answer it, but heard the latch come undone and the low creak of hinges before he had even reached the first landing. 

“Peter?” Iris’s voice echoed down stairwell to him. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course. Always,” he replied, backpedaling a few steps to the edge of the stairs. He listened as Iris’s fast, delicate footsteps tapped their way down. She appeared and stopped a few steps from the end, taking in the sight of her employer and the rabbit perched in his arms.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” she asked.

“If you had, I would have told you,” he said matter-of-factly. “You wouldn’t mind telling me what time it is, would you?”

“It’s a little after four, I think.”

“Thanks.” He looked over his shoulder at the silver automaton, left with his chestplate open and his torso still in segments. “I’ll probably be able to finish piecing this thing’s cogs together before Johona gets home. At this rate, I might have my second musician finished before the week is out.”

“That’s fantastic!” Iris enthusiastically chimed. She approached the table and observed his handiwork. “I-I’m probably wrong in saying this, but didn’t he seem a little more complete than this before?”

“Only because I had to open him back up and add a few things. He’ll be able to move a little easier now. Although...” He studied the automaton for a moment. His eyes fixated on the complex network of joints and sprockets, moving from one piece to another, before bouncing briefly back up to Iris. “I can’t help feeling like there’s something missing. Could you hold the rabbit for a moment?”

The maid quickly reached out to take Kepler in her arms. Peter leaned his elbows onto the edge of the slab and hovered over the automaton, observing him carefully. He felt a faint cramp in his lower back from his position, and all of a sudden, an idea struck him. “That’s it,” he murmured to himself.

“What is?”

“Stability,” he elaborated. “If too much goes into his range of motion, he’ll start lacking in stability. I might have to adjust his structure a little... Maybe reinforce the spinal column. That ought to do it.”

“But... I-I thought... weren’t you going to have him finished soon?”

“Can’t help changing plans, Iris. Besides, I can’t very well present a faulty product to anyone who wants to invest in my ideas.”

“I understand,” she said, nodding her agreement. For a while, the lab was suspiciously quiet. Peter felt compelled to look up from his work, and when he did, he caught Iris looking at the first automaton.

“She’s just about ready to function,” he explained, catching her by surprise. Iris turned back to him, eyes wide. “All her micromachines are fully assembled,” he went on. “I only haven’t added her outer shell yet. I just thought... well, it’s not that important what she looks like, so long as she works, is it?”

Iris’s lips curled into a small smile and she let her eyes drop coquettishly to the floor. “That certainly seems to be the way you prioritize.”

Even with so little a hint, he knew what she was referring to. The deep, shriveled scars that she’d shown him not long beforehand were something he’d never be able to unsee. Even though at the moment, Iris looked like she always had to him, there was an underlying difference that the knowledge brought about in the back of his mind. He was sure, after that night and the agreement they made, he’d never be able to see her the same way again. But it was far from a problem. In fact, both of them were probably better off with a little less confusion. 

_ Confusion _ . The thought brought with it just a touch of bitter irony. At least she hadn’t found his lattice of Delilah’s photographs. He’d shoved it off to a darkened corner somewhere, and as long as it never came up in conversation, he could hold off explaining himself for a little bit longer.

The work went slowly, as it always did, but with Iris in the lab, time seemed to be a little more merciful. She talked to him and kept his thoughts from wandering. Every now and again, he would look up and see her studying the forms of his other creations, watching the blue matter fluctuate in the core, pulling the ends of her sleeves out of Kepler’s mouth or following the rabbit as she scampered back and forth along the counter. In the midst of it all, he began to realize how much he liked the sound of Iris’s voice. 

It had changed considerably. The transition had happened slowly, so much so that Peter had barely noticed. Or maybe it was something recent. Either way, he hadn’t been able to tell until now, when couldn’t help taking note of her sudden shift in tone and quality. Iris sounded more confident. Self-assured, even. She didn’t stutter so much, didn’t whisper half of what she said, and no longer apologized with every other sentence. He was sure that there was something more to it than just a different intonation in her voice. Underneath, he had a suspicion that she had changed as well.

In the span of a few hours, the automaton’s latest adjustments were completed, but Peter felt no sense of accomplishment when he took a step back to get an objective look at his creation. He’d have to start working on the spinal reinforcements the next day, and he might have to double his pace if he wanted to get all three automatons in working order in the same span of time.

He admitted to himself that he had been slacking a bit in his work. His lapse in functionality wasn’t without reason, though. A lot had happened in the past weeks. There had been numerous things weighing on his mind, ranging from Taggart’s ominous letters to the worry of what would become of the twins after they were born. Most of them had been sorted out, he assured himself. The weight of his worries had been lifted, and he’d be able to work a little quicker. 

While playing tug-of-war with Kepler and a bit of twine, Iris glanced up at the stairwell. “Peter, how long do you reckon it’s been since I came down here?” she asked.

Peter huffed. “Hell if I would know. I can never keep track of the time when I’m working.”

“I should probably check upstairs and see if Johona’s come home yet.” She gathered Kepler into her arms. “Is it alright if I take Kepler with me?”

“Sure. That’s fine,” he replied, glancing briefly up from his work to acknowledge her. “I don’t think she’ll be too keen on going back into her hutch now, anyway.”

There was a pause, then he heard Iris approaching behind him. “You sure you’ll be okay down here by yourself?” she asked.

Peter let out a burst of laughter and turned around to see her standing close, cradling Kepler against her shoulder. “I’m a grown man, Iris. I can handle being alone for a few minutes,” he japed. “I’m not the one that you have to worry about mothering.”

Iris giggled, closing the distance between them. A smile played at her lips as she let one hand come to rest on Peter’s belly. “It’s never a bad time to practice, is it?”

He rolled his eyes, although his lips seemed reflexively caught in a daft grin. “Just go and see if Johona’s come home yet,” he instructed her. “If she is, let me know, and I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Iris nodded, offered him a soft “Okay” in return and started up the stairs. Kepler watched him over her shoulder until they both disappeared onto the upper level. After they were gone, he went back to finishing the sprockets. It didn’t take him long to get them all into position. All the while that he was assembling them, he waited for Iris to return to the lab. If Johona wasn’t back yet, he hoped that she would decide to come back downstairs. The lab was unsettling when it was quiet, and the absence of life reminded him far too much of a darker past that he was always trying to forget.

Only a few minutes passed, and he heard the hinges of the lab door creaking open. Footsteps tapped down to the landing of the storage cellar. “Peter?” Iris called out to him. “Johona just got back, and she’s taking care of Kepler now. She wanted me to remind you that you’re supposed to cook tonight.”

“I am?” Leave it to Johona to always point out what he had forgotten. Peter hurriedly wiped his hands off on his lab coat, undid the few buttons he’d fastened and shrugged it off. “Just a minute,” he shouted back to her. “I’ll be right up!”

Hastily, Peter hung his lab coat up on a hook and rinsed the refreshed oil stains from his hands. He rushed up the stairs, in spite of the wavering aches that shuddered through his legs and spine. He was breathing heavily when he reached the kitchen, where Iris was busy setting out ingredients. She looked over at him and blinked in surprise. “I didn’t mean to rush you,” she said.

“I know you didn’t,” he replied, still catching his breath. “I just felt like it.”

She exhaled softly and smiled. “Well... it’s good to have you here.”

He took a deep breath and huffed one last time before smiling back at her, telling her wordlessly that he felt exactly the same way.

* * *

Iris had been staying up later in recent weeks. Peter didn’t want to pry and ask her about it, but he suspected that it might have something to do with wanting to spend more time around Johona and himself. 

Johona had always kept to a considerably more reasonable sleep schedule than he did, but since she came to live in the manor, she’d made the occasional exception in her habits to socialize with him when he seemed to be most at ease. In those instances, Iris was rarely ever missing. Even more often she would appear at his side when Johona had left it, sometimes staying up with him until midnight or later, simply keeping him company until he could ease himself into the mood for sleep.

Peter hadn’t much knowledge of how Iris had slept when she was still living at Saint Bernadette’s. She’d had to work endlessly to earn her keep there, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had simply stopped sleeping in all those years. The notion was ridiculous, though, almost as impossible as his current state of being. He figured that she must have developed a tolerance for a drastic lack of sleep and learned to run on only a few hours a night. Even though she stayed up late with him, she always seemed to be awake before he left his room in the morning. In fact, there was rarely a moment in his life where Iris wasn’t present.

For that reason, it was a little surprising when one night, she didn’t follow him to the library.

“Where’d your shadow?” Johona asked, using the pet name that she’d affectionately given Iris but never used in the maid’s presence. It suited her, in spite of the jibing reference it made.

Peter glanced around at all the empty pieces of furniture in the room, and it almost surprised him to find that Iris wasn’t occupying any of them. “I don’t know,” he replied. “She was running around quite a bit today, though. Poor girl’s probably tired herself out.”

Johona shrugged in her own way of agreeing. Iris had spent most of the day in town, running errands, stopping at the market and post office and a few other places to pick up odds and ends for Peter’s ongoing project. “I’d say something about you running her into the ground, but from what I’ve seen, I don’t think she minds.”

“Whatever I’m asking of her is probably less than what she had to do before.” 

“You really think so?”

“W-well... she was cleaning multiple houses before. Day in, day out. You remember. And she had to work for free in the church if she wanted to...” He trailed off, realizing he was rambling. Johona raised an eyebrow at him. It took a moment for him to remember that his friend likely didn’t know anywhere near as much about the maid as he did. “Alright, you caught me. She’s told me a little bit about herself.”

“Is she content with you sharing anything?”

“I wouldn’t know right this second. I’d have to ask. What, did I say something unfamiliar?”

“Something about a church.”

Peter nodded along, feeling assured that he hadn’t slipped up too badly. “It was all in this conversation that we had a while ago. I came to her to ask about what to do with the twins, and it all sort of just... came out.” All of a sudden, he brightened up. “I have good news, though. She wants to adopt the twins.”

Johona’s eyes widened a little, and a smile tugged at her lips. “Really? You talked to her about it?”

“Yes, I did, and she’s more than happy to take them on and raise them herself.”

“That’s fantastic!” Johona proclaimed, her voice laced with joyful laughter. “I was starting to worry that you were never going to get around to it.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, you know how it’s been.” She shrugged again and took a sip of chamomile tea. “All this time you’ve been so uncomfortable talking about your situation, and I wasn’t sure you’d be able to do it. Can you honestly blame me for being nervous? I mean, you’re almost 29 weeks along as it is. If you hadn’t told me anything by the time you hit 30, I was ready to start sending out want ads in the newspaper.”

Peter tried to find it in him to laugh and take her excuse for a joke, but it came out as more of a sigh. “You would have at least told me before you did, though, right?” he asked. “You weren’t planning on snatching them away from me while I slept or anything?”

“Of course I would have told you,” Johona assured him with a hearty laugh. “Why? Would you have been upset if you woke up one day and they weren’t there anymore?”

“W-well... “ he started to reply, but he found that the right words were out of his reach. He wanted to say no, that it wouldn’t have upset him at all, that everything would be better off if he’d never gotten knocked up in the first place. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The mere thought of saying those words out loud made his soul ache. They wouldn’t have been true at all, he realized. “A-anyone would be,” he stammered, trying to sound impartial. “Disappearances aren’t usually taken lightly.”

For a moment, Johona studied him in silence, then a sly smile materialized on her face. “You know, you’re starting to sound a lot like Iris used to.”

A flush of heat welled up in Peter’s cheeks. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing in particular,” she said, feigning innocence. “I’m only saying that maybe you should have thought twice before you signed over your firstborn children to your maid.”

“Johona, I didn’t  _ sign over _ anything.”

“Alright, then. So there was no signing involved.” She took another slow sip of tea, never once taking her eyes off of her friend. “You’re still giving them to her, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Peter replied, but his heart seized up the second he opened his mouth. “Once they’re born, they’ll be all hers.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Peter wanted to ask what the hell his friend meant by that, but he couldn’t seem to make his tongue cooperate. He’d already made the agreement with Iris. He had finally found a way out of his predicament. But all of a sudden, when thrown into perspective, the solution didn’t seem so much like a solution anymore. 

Once the twins were born, that would be it. They would belong to Iris. He wouldn’t see them again. The two small lives that he’d crafted himself, that had been a part of him for so long, would be gone forever. Maybe she would tell them where they had come from. He hoped she wouldn’t. But he also hoped she would. He didn’t want them to forget him. He wanted to stay with them, for them to know his face and his name and who he was, the same way that he remembered Delilah. He wanted them to know that...

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said tersely, but his throat tightened around the words. He couldn’t make himself meet Johona’s eyes. One of his hands moved of its own accord and settled itself atop his belly. He felt the twins stir beneath it and his heart spasm in response.

Neither of them spoke for a painfully long time. Peter could feel Johona watching him, her eyes boring holes into the side of his head, and the last thing he wanted to do was have to look her in the eyes and say out loud what she probably already knew was true. A page of her journal turned over. A teacup clinked against a saucer before being settled onto a table. When someone finally worked up the nerve to speak, of course it was Johona.

“I told you before that you were like this,” she said matter-of-factly. “That you’ve always been slow to love things.”

“And you think that I...” Peter started to retort, but he lost the will to say the rest.

“I know you love them,” she corrected him. “And do you know why?”

Peter weakly shook his head.

“Because you’ve changed, Peter. You changed because of them. When I came here five months ago, you were ready to throw your life away. Now you’re almost the same as you were... I don’t even know when. Before I left for Willcox. I haven’t seen you this happy since the Cavalcadium days.”

“Since before Delilah died, you mean.”

He heard Johona choke a little on her words. “W-well, I wasn’t going to out and  _ mention _ it right in front of you.”

“But that is what you really meant.” Peter’s lips curved into a sad smile. “Isn’t it?”

She sighed, and he finally found it in himself to meet her eyes again. His friend was watching him intently with a faint sadness in her eyes. “It is,” she admitted. 

“I must be rubbing off on you,” he said softly. “Refusing to state the facts like this. What happened has already happened, and there’s nothing that anyone can do to change it.”

Johona’s eyes widened in surprise. “That is the absolute last thing that I thought I would ever hear you say.”

“But it’s the truth, isn’t it?” he went on. Even though his heart throbbed painfully with every word he said, he couldn’t stop. “I’ve been grieving for so long that I forgot that acceptance is supposed to be part of the whole process. She’s gone, and I... I can’t bring her back.”

“So you’ve finally decided to move on with the rest of us?” Johona quietly asked after another long silence.

“I’ll try,” Peter replied. “I can’t promise anything. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget her, but if I could just stop clinging to her like this, it would be worth something.”

Johona’s face took on a knowing look. “Are you doing it for them?”

Peter looked down at his swollen stomach and faint laugh bubbled up from his chest. “Maybe,” he said. 

“And what about Iris?”

“I’m sure we’ll work something out,” he assured her. “At this point, we barely know anything. It’s all a matter of time and significance, and figuring things out as they go. If we discussed this all any further, she would probably understand. She’s good with that, the way she is. But if I outright told her that I’d changed my mind...” He sighed. “I couldn’t do that to her. It would break her heart.”

“You’ll have to make up your mind, though. You can’t let Iris raise the babies  _ and _ keep them for yourself.”

“I know.” But he didn’t, really. Even though it only stood to reason that he could choose only one or the other, his heart didn’t seem willing to give up so easily.

Johona glanced at the clock. “I think it’s best if we leave this whole discussion for another day. You won’t be able to make any decisions when it’s this late.”

“You’re right,” he agreed without protest. “Besides, I’ll need time to think about all of this.”

With a nod, his friend stood up from her chair, gathered up her tea and journal and started for the hallway. As she approached the door, though, she stopped short and turned back around. “You know what, Walter?” 

“What?” Peter asked, his chest full of warm static.

“I think your heart’s grown bigger along with that belly of yours.”

He laughed. For once, he couldn’t disagree.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's time to stop editing when you're falling asleep every few words that you read.  
> I'm steadily losing my ability to function. So i think it's just about time to stop.  
> Hope this chapter gave you as much diabetes as it gave me. Probably didn't. But I hope it did.  
> See you next chapter.


	16. Obituary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL.  
> NO TIME FOR AN AUTHOR NOTE TODAY, BECAUSE I TRIED TO POST THIS CHAPTER 2 HOURS AGO. THEN THE SITE DECIDED TO FUCK ITSELF, LOG ME OUT AND DESTROY ALL MY PROGRESS.  
> All we've got time for is TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS.  
> Those include mentions of DEATH, lying, an ANXIETY ATTACK and, as usual, more extensive descriptions of weird shit.  
> Time to fuck off and tell a story.  
> PROPERLY THIS TIME.

 

Life was a privilege to live, Iris thought. It was an honor to be alive in the time and place where she stood. She was blessed beyond comprehension to have earned her position, to be gaining back the years’ worth of wages she’d lost, and especially to be allowed to spend her days looking after _him._

She hadn’t seen much of Peter Walter for most of the day, but simply because he was out of sight did not in the least mean that he was out of mind. He seemed to be with her in spirit at all times, always lingering in the back of her head no matter where she was or what she did.

 _And the twins_ , she reminded herself. _It’s him_ and _the twins now_.

The manor had been running low on a few perishable things, Kepler needed some fresh bedding and it had been a while since Peter’s post office box had last been checked, so he had requested that she go into the city at some point during the day. After spending the morning seeing to the house, she ventured out to the lively San Diego streets. She’d been gone from the manor for hours. The canvas bag she had slung over her shoulder was heavy with assorted parcels, and she’d picked up everything that had been included on the compiled list that Peter had given her that morning. The only thing left to do was stop through the post office, pick up whatever was there for him, and return home.

 _Home?_ Iris caught herself as the word crossed her mind. She shook it out of her head and kept walking. She had been getting too comfortable there lately. At first, she only thought she’d been doing it because Peter seemed to want her to, but every time she meditated on it for more than a few seconds, she always came to the conclusion that it wasn’t true. Deep down, _she_ was really the one who wanted her to stay there.

 _She_ was the one who wanted to call the manor “home.” But it wasn’t her home. Once the twins were born and Peter recuperated from the experience, he’d hand over the twins to her and her term as his resident would end. She’d have the twins, of course. She always would. But she wouldn’t have him. Knowing that hurt her in a deep, indefinable way, even though she knew all too well that he had never been hers in the first place.

And somewhere out in the world, there was Delilah. She’d already captured his heart once, and if he recovered as Iris hoped he would, she was sure that he would find his estranged love eventually. And when he did, and when he saw her again after all this time, that would be the end of everything.

Iris put the idea to the back of her mind as she stepped through the door to the post office. It was unfitting to dwell on silly projections of the future when there was so much work to be done. For now, the only subjects she should have been thinking about were retrieving Peter’s mail and getting back to the manor before dark.

So that was what she did. With a clear head, Iris passed by the handful of people littering the lobby and made her way to the wall of little wooden doors. She spun the combination lock in the pattern she’d been taught, and the door swung open to reveal a short stack of letters sitting inside. It was a light load, as usual, and Iris tucked them under her arm as she shut the box again and started out toward the street.

In her years as a maid, Iris had learned to know better than to pry into the private lives of her employers. That being the case, she didn’t even glance at the letters she’d taken before stowing them in her bag. But recent events- namely, Mr. Babclock’s calls for aid- had been pulling at her curiosity lately.

She had been sent out to collect Peter’s mail many times before. The first few times, she’d kept her eyes off of the letters. However, since the arrival of Babclock’s second message, she’d taken up a habit of becoming strung with anxiety every time she went to the post office. Every time she opened that small locked door, there was a chance that she would find another letter from Africa sent post-haste with another message to strike fear into her dear employer’s heart.

Now the stack of letters were stowed in her bag, safe from her eyes. She could feel their shapes through the canvas. They burned against her side like squares of hot sheet metal. As she traveled back to the manor, anticipation welled in the back of her mind. It had gotten a jump on her before and caused her to look. All she’d ever done was shuffle through the stack, at glance at the return addresses and turn the envelopes over in her hand, ensuring that none were marked with a boldfaced, blood-red _URGENT_ . She still had yet to collect one for herself. Still, there was always the chance, the faint possibility that one might be lurking in the middle of the stack, waiting for its screaming red _URGENT_ to meet Peter’s unsuspecting eyes.

At that, Iris lost her nerve. She had to know. She simply had to.

Her hand plunged into the bag and found the letters almost immediately. Iris clasped her fingers around whatever they could reach and pulled everything out. She stared intently at the envelopes in her hands, carefully reviewing each one. The top of the stack seemed innocent enough, maybe a bill or a bank statement. Nothing significant about it. She shuffled to the next letter, which was just as unremarkable as the first. The next was the same, and so was the one after that.

Iris saw the bright red corner of the envelope before it reached the top of the stack. Still she sifted on, disregarding the two letters on ahead of it to reach the last one underneath. Suddenly, there it was, staring her directly in the face: an envelope made from worn off-white paper, marked with a return address in Africa and the glaring _URGENT_ stamp impressed along the side.

Iris’s heart gave a shudder and sank. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She’d known what she was thinking when she gave in to her curiosity and looked through Peter’s letters, but still, she’d been clinging to the subtle hope that nothing would be there. Nothing had ever turned up before.

 _Why now?_ She begged the empty air around her for an answer, and none came. _Why this time? Why now, when things were just starting to seem okay again?_

They had finally found a way to work things out. A plan was in place, and in the end, everyone would be relatively satisfied. At last things were going well, but apparently Babclock’s mines were of greater importance than the well-being of his friends.

Iris shoved the letters back into the bag. What was she going to do when she got home? Her first thought was to warn Peter; it would be best if he knew what was coming to him, and when he finally did open the letter, maybe he’d be more able to come to terms with whatever it said. But what if he disregarded the rest of this mail for the sake of this one letter? There might be something important that he could miss. Iris didn’t want him to lose his composure over Babclock again, but letting him lapse on his tax payments or anything of the like was just as bad. So she kept thinking, pulling and twisting and tying her ideas up in knots, trying to work out how she would break the news to him, but nothing she crafted seemed to hold together.

Before she had concocted even a semblance of a plan, she was heading down the front walk of the manor. She sighed, clenching her fingers around the strap of her canvas bag. There wasn’t much more time to make up her mind. The knowledge of the letter burned like an ember in her skull. Then she was at the front door, turning the key in the lock.

The manor was quiet when she came through the door, which was a small relief. Peter was nowhere to be seen. Iris headed to the kitchen to lay out the groceries she’d brought back and left the stack of letters on the corner of the table while she put everything into its proper place. It was quick work for her, and she kept the letters in the pocket of her apron while she brought the small package of hay she’d bought to the foyer and changed the bedding in one of Kepler’s hutches out on the front porch. Then, steeling herself, she started towards the library.

Peter seemed to sense her before she had even reached the landing of the cellar. “Iris?” he called out to her from the lab.

“It’s me,” she echoed back to him, trying to sound chipper. She was always happy when she came to see him in the late afternoon, so that was what he’d see from her. Iris’s twisted heartstrings weren’t quite ready to come clean about what she’d seen just yet.

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought it was Father Christmas!” A joke. He was laughing.

Iris sped up on her way down the stairs. She reached the bottom and saw Peter standing beside the slab that held the second automaton, which had been turned over and lay facedown with its back plates split open along a central seam. Her employer was leaning over his creation, his belly almost resting on top of the table as he carefully pieced it together. He looked up when he heard Iris reach the landing and pushed his goggles up to his forehead, a smile on his face.

“How is everything?” she cordially asked.

“Fantastic,” he replied. “The vertebrae just came out of the cast, and I’ll probably have the whole spine assembled in a few days.” He set his tools down and circled around the table to her. “I’m glad you came. There’s something that I’ve been wanting to show you.”

For a second, Iris forgot the weight of the letters in her pocket. “What is it?”

“I’ve been testing this out for a while, and you’re going to need to watch closely,” he excitedly explained. He took Iris’s hand and led her to the lab table, then turned around to lean back against it. He raised his left hand to his waist and placed his fingertips to the side of his swollen abdomen. “Pay attention to the surface. Tell me if you see it, too.” With that, he pressed down, making a small dent in his skin. He waited a second, tapped the same spot and pressed it again. Suddenly, something bulged outward from inside, pushing back against his fingers before disappearing.

Iris stared at him, eyes wide. “What is that?”

An ecstatic smile spread across his face. “That one is aggressive,” he elaborated. “I’ve tried it on the other side, and the other twin doesn’t seem to care.” He patted the left side of his belly. “But this one doesn’t like having its space invaded.”

“Really?” Iris’s face was starting to mimic his. “They’re not even born yet, and you already know so much about them.”

“Well, I’m basically stuck to them, so if I haven’t learned anything by now...” He shrugged. “It would certainly say a lot about my observation skills. I wouldn’t be worth my salt as a scientist.”

“I-I wouldn’t take it so far as to say _that_...”

“Maybe,” he acquiesced. “You know how it is, though. It’s especially important in my line of work, even more so when you’re trying to make something new. Everything is theories and note-taking, basically throwing darts blindly and waiting to see what sticks. With experimentation, observation is everything.” He paused, looking at her with a mysterious softness in his eyes. “Sometimes I think you’re even better at it than I am.”

Iris felt warmth rising to her cheeks. “Well... it’s taken me a lifetime of learning.”

“And it’s served you well.” He turned back to the table and resumed his work on the automaton. “Is Johona back from the hospital yet?”

“Not that I’ve seen, but I’ve only been back for a short while myself.”

Peter hummed his acknowledgement, not taking his eyes off of his work. Then there was a moment, short and profoundly quiet. As silence stretched between them, Iris remembered the faint weight in her apron pocket. She still hadn’t handed Peter’s mail over to him. She wondered briefly if he remembered what he’d asked of her that morning, how much of the list she’d been given had remained in his head. Above it all, she was berating herself, asking over and over why she hadn’t given him the mail yet. _It’s only a stack of letters_ , she scolded herself. Then, rethinking, _A stack of letters, and then one message from Babclock._

“How was the city today?”

Peter’s question had come out of nowhere and startled Iris out of her deliberation. “I-It was good,” she stammered. “I brought the list with me, and everything’s been checked off. The pantry is restocked, I’ve cleaned up Kepler’s hutch from the parlor, and... um...” _You have to do it_ , her mind harshly told her. “And I stopped by the post office.”

He nodded along as he listened to her speak. “Good, good. Was there anything interesting?”

Iris’s core gave an inward shudder. “W-well... I really wouldn’t know.” The lie was bitter on her tongue as she said it, so she quickly followed up with, “I didn’t open any of them. It’s not like I’ve got any right to be reading your letters.” There. Now it was a half-truth. That was at least a little better, wasn’t it?

Peter looked up from his project and cocked his head, a curious smile under his goggles. “Like to keep me guessing, don’t you?” he joked.

“Why would I need to do that?” A nervous laugh shivered its way up from Iris’s lungs. She hoped desperately that her employer couldn’t hear her apprehension.

“I wouldn’t know unless you told me. Maybe you find it fun. Or you’re just keeping me sharp, making sure the blue matter doesn’t melt my brain.” He grinned, tapping the side of his head with a small wrench. “How much was there? No more packages, I hope.”

“No, nothing like that,” Iris said, almost too quickly. “Only the usual stack of letters.”

“That’s ordinary,” he remarked, sounding almost relieved. “So where are they? Did you leave them upstairs?”

“A-actually...” Iris slipped her hand hesitantly into her apron pocket. If she told him now, there would be no turning back. She had already lied to him once, and going any further would be an insult to his intelligence. “I-I have them right here,” she said definitively.

“A personal delivery? I feel so privileged,” Peter said. “Well, lay them out if you’ve got them, I suppose.”

“As you wish.” Forcing back her trepidation, Iris closed her fingers around the handful of envelopes and started to lift them. Then, all of a sudden, she felt one slip.

In a split second, her brain was flooded with possibilities. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if a letter or two was out from the stack. After all, he hadn’t been the one to pick them up in the first place. And what he didn’t know probably couldn’t hurt him, at least for now. Still, a faint twinge of guilt was tangled up in Iris’s heartstrings. She couldn’t keep up this charade. If he found out later what she had kept from him, she could lose her job, or worse yet...

But one look at Peter’s bright-eyed, curious face and suddenly she found herself reconsidering. He seemed happy. More so than usual, she thought. For once, he was content with the progress he was making in his work, and excited to talk with her about the twins. He had been doing so well since the last letter that Babclock had sent. She couldn’t ruin that for him.

In that fraction of time, her mind was made up.

“Hold on, I lost a few,” she murmured, letting a few more envelopes slip from her fingers. She turned away from him, looking down as her hands dug frenetically in her apron pocket. The _URGENT_ letter was easy to spot, its bright red ink clear against its pale surroundings. Meticulously, Iris snatched up every last letter except for that one. It burned a hole in her pocket as she lifted the others out and laid them on the table. “There we go,” she said with an excess hint of finality. She was already starting to feel regret, but it would only be for a short while. She’d give him Mr. Babclock’s letter soon. She only wanted him to be happy for a little bit longer.

 _Only for now_ , she told herself. _It’s only for right now._

Peter pushed his goggles up to his forehead to look them over. He reached out to pick one up, realized his hands were drenched with oil, and hurriedly wiped them off on the hem of his lab coat. He lifted up the stack in his nimble fingers and shuffled quickly through them, systematically tearing each one open and skimming their contents. “Bills... advertising... tax return, that’ll be interesting,” he muttered as he read. “It’s just another day, it seems.”

His calm demeanor soothed Iris a bit too much. “Better no news than bad news, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t say a tax return statement is _no news_ ,” the engineer said, sorting the open letters back into a neat stack. “I’m not really in a state to go through these right now, though. Would you mind dropping them off in my study? I’ll be able to get a better read on them later.”

“Of course,” Iris replied. She gathered the mail up into her hands. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“I’ll see you then.” He slid his goggles back down over his eyes. “And if you by any chance catch Johona, warn me before she comes and finds me herself, alright?”

“I will.”

“And if you could, let me know what time it is?”

“I’ll check before I return.”

Iris left it at that and started for the stairs, letting Peter carry on with his project by himself. Mr. Babclock’s letter felt uncharacteristically heavy in her pocket. She quickened her steps, trying to cut the distance between herself and the study. She wanted to put that damnable letter down as soon as she could, give it over to her employer and forget that she’d ever seen it. The sentiment had her brought her to a half-jog by the time she left the library, and her pace only grew faster the further she went. On the staircase to the second floor, she had to stop. Her corset was straining her ribs and she felt unable to breathe. Leaning against the banister, she stood and panted for a few seconds, cursing herself for being so skittish.

In the study, Iris pulled the letters from her pocket and stacked them neatly on her employer’s desk, this time including Mr. Babclock’s _URGENT_ letter in the middle of the pile. It seemed to be the most honest arrangement she could make. _Just like it was before_ , she thought. She looked at the finished stack for a moment, considered the arrangement, then pulled the unopened letter and shifted it to the top. _So he’ll see it first this time_ , she notified herself. She’d kept it hidden for long enough. He’d already seen the rest of the mail, so now nothing would stand in the way of his finding out the truth.

It would have stood to reason for her to leave then. She’d finished what she had come to do, and she no longer had any business lurking around in her employer’s study. Yet something kept her rooted to the floor. Iris found herself unable to move, even less capable of taking her eyes off of Mr. Babclock’s letter. The blood-red letters of the _URGENT_ stamp seemed to stare right back at her. She knew what the problem was. Her guilty conscience was getting the better of her already.

Iris went back to the desk and hastily swept the _URGENT_ letter off of the pile. She pushed the others to the side and left the single unopened envelope in the dead center of the desk, its stamp and return address left plain for her employer to see. For a second, she felt like that would be repentance enough, letting him see her mistake laid out so clearly, but she still felt a raw, biting sting in her chest. She quickly rounded the desk and eased one of the drawers open, searching for a piece of scrap paper and something to write with. She would leave him a note with the letter, apologizing for what she had done. She’d tell him that the mistake was out of her own naivety. She didn’t know what was in the letter, only the history of what Mr. Babclock’s messages always entailed. She had wanted him to be happy for a little longer, and she hadn’t wanted to deceive him, but she was too worried by the prospect of shattering the sense of calm that seemed to have fallen over the manor, and more importantly, his own peace of mind.

But as Iris scribbled, the less her words seemed to make sense. She wrote a single line, read it over, crossed it out and started again, only to cross that same line out a moment later. After she had managed to fill half the page with ink blots, chicken scratch and other meaningless drabble, she gave up. She was overthinking all of this. There wasn’t any point in trying to explain what she had done. No amount of elaboration could undo it or cover it up.

Resignedly, Iris crumpled up her halfhearted note and dropped it in the wastebasket beside the desk. Peter would simply have to find Mr. Babclock’s letter and do whatever he saw fit once he read its contents. If he came to her about it, she would explain herself to him then. He knew her. He would understand. And if he didn’t... well, that was something that Iris knew how to deal with.

* * *

Peter never told Johona that Iris had brought in the mail that day. In fact, he almost forgot that he had postage to look over at all. By the time he remembered, several hours had passed, and it was starting to get late. Johona had already traded in her day dress for a shift and was taken up with re-hutching Kepler in her room for the night. Peter was standing by the night table, thumbing through the journal entries that his friend had finally allowed him to see, when all of a sudden he straightened up and glanced towards the door, looking startled.

“What is it?” she asked, perplexed. “Did the twins kick you too hard again?”

In a second, the surprise on his face was gone and he was glowering at her. “No,” he defensively replied. “I just remembered that I had Iris leave all my mail in my study and I haven’t looked at it yet.”

“Hm,” Johona mumbled in acknowledgement as she latched the door on Kepler’s hutch. “It’s late already. You could probably leave it until tomorrow. There isn’t anything pressing that you need to see, is there?”

“I can’t be sure. I only glanced over the letters. I didn’t read any of them thoroughly.”

“I suppose you’d better find out, then.” Peter nodded and left the room. As he was leaving, Johona leaned out the door and called after him, “Don’t rush. I’ll be joining you in a moment.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “No harm in it.”

Her friend rolled his eyes and continued on down the hallway. Johona stepped back into her room to finish setting up Kepler’s hutch for the night. After the rabbit was settled in the corner of her enclosure, a sufficient layer of straw tossed over her back, Johona followed Peter’s path down the hall. His study was close by, and it didn’t take her long at all to catch up to him. When she reached the door, she found that it was open, and when she glanced inside, the last thing she thought she would see was her friend standing deathly still in front of his desk.

“Peter?” Johona took a cautious step through the doorway, slowly approaching him where he stood. He didn’t move when she said his name, didn’t do so much as glance back at her. She felt cold, fluid dread starting to pool in her guts. “Peter?” she asked again. “Is everything alright?”

Still no response, so she ventured closer. It wasn’t until then that she saw what was on his desk. Off to one side, stacked neatly beside a pile of books and notepaper, was a handful of letters, all of them torn open at the edges; probably the mail that he said he’d already seen. And lying in the middle of the desk was a single off-white envelope, fully sealed, looking completely untouched. Johona couldn’t see the return address from where she stood, but the glaring red _URGENT_ stamp along the edge of the paper told her more than enough.

“Oh, god,” she murmured. There didn’t seem to be much else that she could say.

It wasn’t until then that Peter seemed to notice her presence. He glanced over at his friend, looking absolutely stricken. “This wasn’t in the stack of letters that Iris gave me this afternoon.”

“What do you think that means?” She went intrepidly to the desk and picked up the letter to study it more closely. “Did Babclock send someone to break into your house and leave this here?”

“All I can think is that Iris didn’t show me,” he mused. He’d finally come out of his statuesque state and took the letter when Johona handed it to him. “And that could have been for a number of reasons. She’d had the letters in her apron pocket, and this one might have gotten lost, or perhaps she’d dropped it when she gave me all the others...”

He trailed off, and Johona didn’t need him to say the rest. “Well, there’s no sense in standing around and deducing why Iris didn’t show you the letter right away. The letter is here now, and someone’s got to read it.”

Peter let out a deep sigh or resignation. “You’re right,” he listlessly agreed. “You’re right.” Mechanically, he started through the motions of tearing the envelope open along one edge. He took out the paper inside and unfolded it to read the message.

“Dear Mr. Walter,” he began, “I come to you with grave news from the Dandy Candy Corporation. Your friend, Thaddeus Becile, has...”

Suddenly, Peter’s voice seemed to have vanished. Johona listened expectantly for more, but there was nothing to be heard. Her friend simply stared at the letter in front of him, stone-faced and wide-eyed, his lips moving faintly and murmuring things that she couldn’t understand. Soon they fell slack, his mouth hanging open in shock, and his gaze became steeped in fear. He turned the page over, switched the sheets around in his hands as he frantically read more, moving too fast for Johona to catch anything over his shoulder.

“What is it?” she impatiently asked. “What does he want?”

Still, her friend said nothing, only went on reading. Then, with a sudden flick of his wrists, he flung the letter down on the desk and took a step back. One hand went to cover his mouth, and the other to his chest, as if his heart were beating so hard it threatened to break free from his ribs. He stared down at the letter, his eyes huge and unblinking, an expression of abject horror on his face.

“H-he can’t...” Peter murmured. “He couldn’t have... oh, god, no...”

“Peter?” Johona said, hoping that he would respond. “Peter, what is it? What did he say?”

No matter how she tried to get an answer, her friend seemed unable to hear her. He backed away from the desk with unsteady steps, the look of stunned terror never once leaving his face. She reached out and caught him by the shoulder, and for a second, he was shaken out of his trance and fixed his eyes on her.

“Peter, what is it?” she asked again.

“H-he...” Peter choked. His mouth moved, and he was breathing as if he wanted to speak, but nothing intelligible came out. “I... I-I can’t...”

And just like that, he had shaken Johona’s hand off of his shoulder and was gone from the room. Johona spun around to chase after him. She leaned out the doorway of the study, but caught sight of him only a second before he disappeared into his room and slammed the door behind him. She sighed. There was no hope of reaching him now.

Dread crystallizing in her veins, she turned back to look at the letter that Peter had left out on his desk. If whatever Babclock had written was enough to send her friend into such a state, she absolutely had to know what it was. Throwing all caution to the wind, she picked up the half-crumpled sheets of paper, put them back into their proper order and started to read.

_Dear Mr. Walter,_

_I come to you with grave news from the Dandy Candy Corporation. Your friend, Thaddeus Becile, has followed through in his threats and become violent in his efforts to obtain more rock candy from the mines. As of the day that I am writing this to you, eighteen of my workers have been lost at the hands of his associates and machines. I do not know what the number of casualties will be by the time that this message reaches you._

Johona had to stop reading and take a breath. She went back over the passage, just to ensure that she’d been reading correctly. Yes, there it was. _Eighteen of my workers have been lost_. That meant killed. Thaddeus had killed eighteen people since the last letter had been sent. Probably more, by the time they were reading it.

_I have tried to be understanding and respectful of your decision to remain neutral, but I must insist that you understand the full severity of this situation. These are no longer fears and suspicions that I am writing to you about. I write to you now to confirm that the threats were real, and Thaddeus Becile is a danger to the life and safety of everyone involved with the Dandy Candy Corporation and our activities in the African mines. At this point in time, property has been destroyed and lives have been lost. I can no longer stand by and hope that you will come around in your responses to my requests for your aid. He must be stopped, and I am afraid that your giving me aid is not a matter of choice anymore._

_I am fully aware that you are not a weapons expert as Thaddeus has so evidently proven himself to be, but I have nowhere else to turn. I have no choice but to demand your participation and cooperation in this affair. I will wait until the second week of November to receive a confirmation from you. Once we have reached an agreement, I will personally arrange your transportation to Africa and your lodgings here. I will provide any materials that you may need, as well as lab assistants, technicians, fuel and anything else that may expedite your efforts to fight back against Thaddeus._

_As of the day I send this letter, you will have three weeks to confirm that you will assist me. If I am met with more denials or do not receive a response at all, my emissary, a man by the name of Arthur Kahn, will be sent to you to communicate in person as soon as possible._

_Here is to the sincerest hope that you respond with haste._

_Taggart Babclock_

* * *

Eighteen people. Eighteen people were dead.

Peter sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the floor. His heart was still hammering in his chest, never having stopped for even a second since he had opened Taggart’s letter. His chest felt tight, and every breath he drew was a concentrated effort. He felt now like the world was collapsing around him, the walls slowly caving in. It was anxiety like he hadn’t felt in months. He couldn’t believe what he’d read in Taggart’s letter. It felt like a hallucination, a fever dream. All those things that he had dared to say. It was cruel. Taggart couldn’t do this to him.

But eighteen people were dead. Taggart wouldn’t let him be anymore.

Peter’s fingers clenched around the edge of his bedspread. His tense, unblinking stare was enough to burn a hole in the floor, and he held his eyes open until they stung. He wanted to fight back, but he knew that he couldn’t. Taggart was too far away. The most he could do was send letters, hope that what he said was strong enough to hold him back. He couldn’t face an emissary. He couldn’t face anyone in his condition. Taggart had resources that had been lost to him for a long time. He could hurt Peter in ways that were far out of his own reach. And so could Thaddeus, he realized. This was his fault. This was all because of him.

Eighteen people were dead. Thaddeus had killed them.

Thaddeus Becile had killed them all.

The fact struck Peter again, ten times as hard as it had when he had read it from the letter. It stood out like a flare in his brain, burning everything around it until it was all charred black. He repeated it to himself, trying to metabolize it. Thaddeus now had blood on his hands. But no matter how many times it echoed in his mind, he couldn’t stop the biting shock that it speared through his heart.

Thaddeus Becile had killed eighteen people. Probably more, since the letter had been written so long ago. All because that Taggart hadn’t been able to stop him on his own. All because Peter couldn’t help him.

In that moment, Peter wanted to. He genuinely wanted to. If he were able, he would have traveled halfway across the world and done whatever Taggart asked of him. He would have done it, if not to help Taggart, to stop Thaddeus. The rampage had been going on for months. It had to end. Somehow, it had to end.

But he couldn’t be the one to end it. He couldn’t, not now, not the way he was. Not when he had so many secrets to keep. Not when his reputation was on the line. Especially not when there were two lives depending on him to survive.

Shivering uncontrollably, Peter wrapped his arms protectively around his stomach. His throat was closing and he had to force himself to breathe. He struggled to find his composure, to center himself and try to think rationally, but his brain was scattered. He couldn’t talk to Taggart’s emissary. He couldn’t go to Africa. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t do anything.

One of the twins stirred inside him. Peter felt its distress, and the anxious vise in his core tightened even further. They were uncomfortable, but he only found himself squeezing them harder. They didn’t know the danger they were in. The world outside was waiting to destroy them. All he wanted was to keep them safe, but it seemed that fate wouldn’t even allow him to do even that much.

He started to cry. He couldn’t stop himself. His breath was catching in his lungs, scalding tears welling up in his eyes and spilling slowly over his face. The baby moved again, and he let out a gasping sob. The poor little creatures. They were so small, so innocent. First he’d tried to kill them, now that he no longer wanted to, the rest of the world did. They only wanted to survive. They didn’t deserve this. Peter slumped forward as far as his swollen belly would let him. He shuddered with every breath he took, his chest collapsing, arms clutching his own body as if that were the only thing holding him together. And maybe it was. Any second, he felt like he would fall to pieces.

In the midst of it all, there was a knock at the door. Peter barely heard it over the white noise that filled his ears. Then another knock, and a gentle, timid voice.

“Peter? Are you there?”

Iris. She was outside, waiting for him to answer. He couldn’t face her, not the way he was. How would he explain himself? What could he possibly say?

“Johona told me to check on you. Sh-she said you were upset.”

Something in her voice sounded wrong. It was almost like the night that the first letter had arrived, the first time she had seen him angry and hopefully the only time she had ever been truly afraid of him. That had been a mistake, and a hard one to correct. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t make himself speak. The silence stretched on for eternities between them, and he heard her shifting from foot to foot. Finally, she spoke up, still as shy as ever.

“A-Alright... I-I’ll just... be on my way, then.” She sounded so hopeless. Something in Peter’s heart finally snapped.

“N-no, don’t leave,” he called out to her without thinking. Outside, she stopped in her tracks. “You can come in,” he weakly added. “P-please, do.”

There was a low _click_ as the door latch came undone, and Iris slowly pushed the door open and stood in the frame. The maid took one look at Peter and he saw her eyes cloud over with fear. Worry etched faint lines into her face. “What happened?” she breathlessly asked.

Peter’s words seemed to stick in his throat and he struggled to force them out. “Th-there was... a letter. Another from Babclock.”  
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door. “S-so you’ve found it?” she murmured, and he nodded. Immediately apologies came spilling out. “I-I’m so sorry, Peter. I’m sorry I didn’t show you before, when I brought you the rest. I-I only... I thought y-you were finally happy, a-and I knew w-what the letter would mean. I didn’t want to... I couldn’t ruin it... I didn’t want to upset you again. B-but I know that I c-can’t stop it, I-I only held it off and made you wait, a-and I... I feel so horrible.”

Finally, it seemed that the stream of apologies had ended, and Iris had realized that this time, Peter had made no move to stop her.

For some time, she stood still and watched him with trepidation. Then, without a word, she stepped cautiously into the room and let the door swing closed behind her. The latch clicked back into place, and she asked him, “What did it say?”

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but the vexing gyre of feelings in his head seemed beyond speech translation. He took a shaky breath and let his gaze fall away from Iris and land on the floor. She didn’t say a word as she patiently waited for him to speak. Finally, the chaos in his mind started to straighten out into words.

“It’s Thaddeus,” he said unsteadily. “He... he’s made good on his threats.”

With even that little explanation, Iris seemed to understand what he meant. He watched as she froze, her eyes wide and frightened. “W-what?”

“H-he’s dangerous, Iris. He’s... h-he’s killed. Eighteen people.”

Iri’s mouth was agape, almost like she wanted to say something, but the world around Peter stayed silent. He felt a surge in his lungs and was he was speaking, words tumbling from his lips, far beyond his control.

“Everything’s falling apart, Iris,” he babbled. “He’s gone mad. People are _dead_ . I-I’ve lost my choice in the matter. I couldn’t stop it, because I couldn’t go out there, but Taggart... he won’t let me stay here. He’s not letting me decline anymore. I _can’t go out there_ , Iris. I-I’ll be slandered, or end up a casualty o-or... or... the twins. Thaddeus would kill them, Iris. They would die out there.”

In a second, she was at his side, sitting next to him on the bed. Her hand reached out and met with his, her palm warm and comforting on his skin. “Peter...” she murmured.

She said nothing more, but that was all that he needed to hear. “He’s sending an emissary,” he continued, forcing the words past the lump in his throat. “If I don’t agree to work with him. Even if I do, he’ll probably send him anyway. I can’t talk to him. If a stranger sees that... sees me like _this_...” He impulsively pressed a hand to his belly, which for some time had been tellingly large. She had to see what he meant by now. His body was in shambles. He couldn’t hide his condition from anyone anymore, even if he tried.

Iris moved her hand from his free one to the other, first overlapping it on his stomach, then gently pulling it away. His fingers twined with hers, squeezing hard, clinging to her as if she were his saving grace. “We’ll make something work,” she whispered.

“I-I know... we have to,” he choked out. “I can’t go out there. I have to stay. I-I _want_ to stay here. But people are _dying_ now. Thaddeus is slaughtering them, because I’m not there to stop him. Taggart isn’t letting me say no anymore, and I don’t want to go out there and fight him. I don’t want to leave my automatons, or Johona or Kepler, or _you_ . But I don’t have a choice anymore. It scares me to death and... and...” Fresh, hot tears seared their way down his cheeks like acid. He gasped, and his voice shrank, quiet and strangled. “ _I just don’t know what to do_.”

Then he broke down. Peter’s heart splintered, and the cold anxiety that constricted his ribs finally collapsed him and forced out a raw, gut-wrenching sob. Tears spilled freely from his eyes, and his chest heaved uncontrollably, staggering his breath into gasps. He swiped angrily at his face with the heels of his hands, trying to scrape the salty stains from his skin, but new tears kept taking their place and he kept at it until his cheeks were worn blue from friction. Iris was staring at him, and he felt burning shame pooling in his core, but he couldn’t make himself stop. Saltwater blurred his vision, and he couldn’t see her face or the look in her eyes. So it surprised him when she reached out and put her arms around him.

He blinked, and suddenly she had pulled him close. He was pressed up against her, her arms around his shoulders, one hand at the back of his neck gently pushing his head onto her shoulder. Her smell of old books and kitchen goods, purity and safety, filled his lungs, and without warning he was crying even harder, his sobbing dissolved into undignified, unintelligible wailing that even he didn’t understand, all stifled by her shoulder. He instinctively wound his arms around her waist and returned her embrace, clinging fast to her, squeezing her like a corset. Anything to stabilize him. Anything to make it better. His face was probably staining her dress. He wanted to apologize to her, but she didn’t seem to care.

Iris’s fingers stroked softly through his hair. He felt her cheek resting on the top of his head. “You’ll be okay,” she whispered to him. “We’ll figure this out. We always do.”

“They’re dead,” he thoughtlessly mumbled. “This is my fault. This is all my fault.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Iris said. She startled him. He had never heard her speak so firmly before. “You knew what you could and couldn’t do. Just because Babclock doesn’t want to accept that...”

“It _is_ ,” he insisted. “I-If I hadn’t... If I just had let him...”

“Peter, please.”

“I should have just let him have her. None of this would have ever happened.”

“What are you saying?” Peter felt Iris loosen her hold on him. She let him slip away a few inches, putting just enough space between them to look him in the eyes. “Peter, what are you talking about?”

At first, he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t thought for even a second about what he’d been saying, only the guilt that weighed his soul down and filled the chambers of his heart with rocks. He stared at the blurry image of Iris in front of him, nothing feeling real but her arms around him, as his thoughts tried desperately to align themselves into sentences. “Th-this is because of Delilah,” he finally said. “I-it’s because we fought over her, and neither of us won. H-he’s out of his mind because she’s gone, and he blames me for everything. Thaddeus... is doing everything... to get to me, don’t you see? B-because she sided with me before he left, b-before she...”

Iris ran her fingers through his hair. For a brief second, he blinked his tears away and the world around him was clear. She was watching him, he saw. Listening. She needed an answer.

“She’s dead,” he said in a cracked whisper. The words surged up from his throat like vomit, burning his tongue and forcing more tears from his eyes, but he couldn’t stop. “She’s gone. She’s dead. Everything’s... It’s all just...”

Words dissolved back into senseless sobbing and his face had returned to Iris’s shoulder. He’d stopped speaking, but his words still echoed in his head. They rang in his skull, driving deeper and deeper like a lobotomy needle. _She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead_.

At least Iris understood now. At least she knew the truth.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured into his hair. “I never knew that... And to think, you’ve been alone all this time. You had to face it, all by yourself...” He felt her lips press gently against his forehead. “I... I wish I could take that pain away, but...”

She trailed off without finishing her sentence, but she didn’t need to. Peter nuzzled deeper into her shoulder, dug his fingers into the cloth of her nightdress, and she knew well enough what he thought. The pain wouldn’t go away. But he had a remedy to it. Iris had shown it to him. He only had to go on living, and eventually things would be better. Things weren’t better yet, though. For now, he needed help to make sure they got that way.

Time passed, what felt like hours. Peter was sure that Iris’s arms were tired from holding him up. He was exhausted, his muffled wailing having faded after the first few minutes into soft, sporadic sobs. Iris’s sleeve was soaked through, but she never said a word about it. She never complained of growing weary of holding him, either. The only hint she gave was when she shifted her legs out from under her and gently tugged him to lie down next to her on the bed. So they rested, sharing the excess of pillows between them, Peter still tangled in Iris’s arms with his head resting on her shoulder.

“Don’t go,” he murmured weakly.

In response, she tightened her arms around him. “I won’t.”

Slowly, everything started to fade. In her chest he heard her deep, steady breathing and the distant rhythm of her heart. It was the most soothing sound he’d ever heard, like a reassuring whisper. _Everything will turn out fine. You will survive this. Somehow, we will find a way._

That night was the first of many that he fell asleep with Iris at his side.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, THAT'S IT FOR ME ATTEMPTING TO SALVAGE TWO HOURS OF WORK IN FIVE MINUTES.  
> So yeah.  
> Now everybody is under attack. I hope this chapter hurt you as much as it hurt me to write it.  
> I'm tired of this shit. I give up for today.  
> See you next chapter.


	17. Plans and Promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drinking Crystal Pepsi and sitting on the sidelines of a very enthusiastic game of Dungeons and Dragons while I write this.  
> Apparently there's a piano golem involved. I didn't even know you could make a golem out of a piano.  
> Anyway, here's another chapter. I can promise this one will be softer than the last.  
> I really want to thank cicada_s for picking this story up again. The friends I've managed to drag into this shenanigan have mostly managed to back out. As of now I've just got my beta and you, so thanks for not jumping ship. And a message for volatileSolosite, thanks for reading the extremely uncomfortable chapters that await everyone in the near future. I hope everyone else is as willing to put up with them as you've been.  
> Not many CONTENT WARNINGS for this round. Only more mention of death, and the usual vivid descriptions of weird, weird shit. But that's been going on for a while now, so I'd think you'd be expecting that.  
> Well now there's an angry dwarf pirate involved. I'm almost starting to regret sitting this game out.  
> Best finish this update quickly, then.

 

When Peter awakened late the next morning, Iris was gone. He stirred sleepily, raising his head from the pillow to peer at the space beside him. The covers were askew, crumpled around the mattress as if someone had pushed them aside not too long ago. Lying on his side, he inched towards it and reached out to touch the empty sheets. As his fingers brushed the dented pillowcase, he thought he could catch the scent of her hair on the fabric.

So she had stayed with him through the night. He’d slept through her departure, of course. After everything that had happened, he could have slept through the rest of his life and failed to notice how much time had passed. He craned his neck to look for the stout clock on his dresser. It was just gone 10 in the morning, and sunlight was streaming steady and bright through the window. With some difficulty, he sat up. His body felt heavy, like there was lead in his veins. He must not have moved at all during the night. All the better for Iris, he supposed.

Speaking of her, she probably deserved an explanation for all of this. Or a thank you, at the very least. As hurriedly as he could in his dreamy state, Peter pulled himself out of bed, put some proper clothes on and ventured out into the house to find her.

The moment he stepped outside, Peter caught the scents of pastry dough and seasonings drifting up the staircase. He figured that meant Iris was in the kitchen, where he could almost always find her at this time of day. He made his way down the stairs and rounded the corner to the doorway. There she was, standing at the wood-burning stove, already dressed prim and proper in her uniform, all except for her thick, frizzy hair. She’d left it unbound, and its curls hovered around her head like a mahogany halo. The fire in the stove was crackling, and the hatch was open. Iris had her back to him as she slid a tray of raw dough onto the rack before swinging it closed. She straightened up, brushed her hands off on her apron, then turned around and immediately saw that she was being watched.

Iris startled a bit, briefly frozen, her eyes blinking wide in surprise. Peter smiled. “Morning, Iris,” he said warmly.

Instantly, her posture softened. “Good morning. You startled me.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He walked further into the room and went to the pantry to choose a tea from the assortment. “When did you wake up?”

“A little after 9:30. A lot later than I usually do, but...” She shrugged.

“It’s not a big deal, really. Everyone deserves a little respite every now and then.”

The kitchen was quiet for a moment, then Iris spoke up. “I hope you slept well last night.”

Tea in hand, Peter spun his head around to look at her. “I-I did,” he said hesitantly. He stepped back and closed the pantry door. “Listen... about last night...”

“Y-you don’t need to explain, if you don’t want to,” Iris quickly cut in. “I... I think I can understand.”

He left the tea on the counter and took a step toward her. “I was hysterical, Iris. I didn’t know what I was saying. You deserve a better explanation than...” He sighed, still half-asleep. “Whatever the hell I told you.”

Iris didn’t respond, only went to the counter and busied herself with cleaning up the ingredients that she’d used to make the pastries. Peter watched her from the corner by the pantry before going to take the kettle from the stove and filling it with water from the sink. They stood by side, mere feet apart, neither saying anything. Then one of the twins woke up and shifted, making Peter inhale sharply and falter as he tried to shut the tap off.

The maid looked over at him then and quietly asked, “How are they?”

Peter looked down at his abdomen and gently brushed his hand over it. “They were pretty quiet, up until now. I can only imagine how rattled they are after everything that happened yesterday.”

“Do you think they know what’s going on?”

“Probably not. There’s no real way to tell. But they know I was upset. It’s like... whatever I feel, they can somehow feel too. They sense me. I’m not sure how to explain it.” He set the kettle down on the counter and glanced at the stove. “About how long will those be baking for?”

“Only a few minutes,” she replied. “Maybe ten.”

“If you have questions, I won’t mind answering them.”

She glanced sideways at him past her hair. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. It’s only right, after... after everything you’ve done for me.”

Iris smiled shyly and let slip a fluttering sigh. “You don’t owe me anything, Peter. I stayed with you last night because I knew you needed it. I was only showing you a little human kindness.”

“Th-that isn’t why this is, Iris. I’m not only doing this to pay you back. I’m doing this because I want to.”

That seemed to catch her attention. She stared for a second, seeming hesitant, before asking, “Y-you’ll answer anything I ask you?”

“Anything,” he confirmed with a nod of his head.

Iris pursed her lips, drummed her fingers on the counter, then went to the kitchen table. She had already taken the chairs out from the corner and placed them around the table. He followed her, and they sat down at a corner, juxtaposed to one another. She folded her hands and pressed her knuckles to her mouth, gazing out into the middle distance as she thought. Peter knew she was choosing her words carefully, as she always did.

“I’m not sure where to start,” she finally said.

“Start anywhere.”

“Alright.” She paused. “How long have you and Thaddeus been fighting?”

“How long...” Peter echoed and trailed off. “Christ. I can’t even be sure. Nearly as long as we were part of the Cavalcadium. Even now. It’s been years.”

“And it was always over her?”

“Not always, but when it did become about her, it was worse than ever before.”

“What was she like?”

It was kind of her, how Iris never said Delilah’s name out loud. It was unnecessary, though. Peter knew she was treading lightly for his sake. “Delilah was...” His voice wavered as her name caught in his throat. “It’s hard to explain. There was just... something about her that everyone absolutely adored.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“Of course she was. But that was only a part of everything else. She was intelligent and talented, and she was never ready to stand still or settle. She was... like a fairy or a sprite or something like that. Otherworldly, almost.” He stopped for a second, thinking it over again. “Maybe it was the whole air of unattainability... That always seems to make things appear too good to be true.”

“How did she die?”

There it was. Peter had been waiting for her to ask that question. She’d done it so timidly and carefully, but still it caused grief to claw at him. He bit his lip, swallowed his trepidation, and forced himself to speak. “No one really knows. Everyone who heard the news said it was a mysterious illness. It acted too fast for any doctor to stop it, and in a span of weeks she...” The last words died on the tip of his tongue, and he started over. “There was speculation with some of the Cavalcadium members. Most projects were kept out of the public eye, and there were a few who were killed by their life’s work. When doctors failed to explain it, people started whispering about radiation poisoning.”

“Like what you have?”

“No, not like me. Not at all,” he elaborated. “You see, Delilah was a chemist. She dabbled in just about every area of science, but that was her specialty. And the materials she worked with were much more dangerous than blue matter. Some that hadn’t been documented by modern science yet. I... I remember she was trying to come up with a few names herself... wanted to publish her findings...” He sighed. She had never gotten the chance.

Beside him, he heard Iris breathing and felt the tension of her presence close by. He glanced over to see that she was looking at him, and something in her expression seemed vaguely but deeply sad. Her hand found his on the tabletop, and he didn’t startle or pull away, letting her stroke her fingertips gently across the back of his wrist.

“You must be scared,” she said softly, “what with everything that’s going on.”

Peter felt his heart spasm in response. “I was afraid of what you’d think if I said it outright, but you already saw what a disaster I was last night. It’s no use trying to hide anything from you.”

“But you don’t _have_ to hide anything from me.”

As she spoke, the whole world stalled. Peter brought his eyes up to look at her, feeling numb, faintly tinged with surprise and shock and other things in doses too small to sense. In that same second, Iris, who had never taken her eyes off of him, seemed to be stalling as well. She froze up, then reset. “I-I mean... Peter, I was trying to say th-that...”

He turned his hand over and just like that, her palm was cradled around his. Her watched her eyes soften and said, “I know what you meant. And I’m glad you feel that way.”

“I-I just wanted to tell you... I wanted you to know you can trust me, that’s all.”

“I do trust you, Iris,” he assured her.

The maid’s fingers tensed on his wrist for a second, and she turned away to look at the stove, as if she’d just remembered that she had left a tray of pastries in it. “We are going to need a plan, though,” she said.

“I know,” Peter mechanically replied. “Taggart isn’t content to wait around any longer. But we can’t discuss anything without Johona here, and I haven’t spoken to her since last night.” Last night, when he stormed out of the study in an emotional daze. He shuddered inwardly at the memory. He hoped that she would forgive him for acting that way.

“She read the letter after you left it,” Iris chimed in. “She was holding it when she asked me to find you. If she already knows what’s going on, then I’m sure she’ll be able to work out some kind of plan. She’s good for that sort of thing. For all we know, she might have come up with something already.”

He nodded along, unsure of how to respond. He wanted to believe her, since her words were the most soothing thing he’d heard since the week before when she promised to care for the twins.

 _The twins_ , he thought suddenly. He remembered the conversation that he’d had with Johona only a few days before, when she’d forced him to realize how attached to them he really was. He felt an uncomfortable ache in his chest. _Was it really true?_ he wondered. He hoped it wasn’t. Finally, Iris had something good in her life. He didn’t want to take it from her.

But what if he did? What if he really was so attached to the little creatures he carried that he couldn’t give them away? Iris would do an infinitely better job of caring for them than him. He was sure of that. It wouldn’t be fair to her _or_ to them. He brushed the thought away. It was unbelievably selfish of him to even consider it.

Even then, something else glimmered under the surface. _What if_ , he silently wondered, _neither of us had to give them up?_

As the thought crossed his mind, Iris’s hand slipped from his. The kitchen had been silent for several minutes, he realized, and she’d left the tray of rolls in the oven for all of that time. He watched her rise from the table and scurry to the wood-burning stove to pull the hatch open. The room filled with the scent of fresh bread, and she moved the tray of now-golden rolls out of the fire and onto the grate of the stove. “The cinnamon rolls seem just about finished,” she said. “Would you like me to stoke the fire to make some tea?”

“Y-yes, of course,” Peter replied. He went to fetch the kettle from the sink, carried it to the stove and set it down on the grate. Iris conjured up enough fire from the embers for the ends of the flame to be slipping through the wrought metal. She stood up, gave her work a satisfied smile, then turned to Peter. He felt a warmth stirring inside of him and told himself it was probably one of the twins. Then Iris raised a hand to caress his belly, causing one of the them to squirm closer to her, and he realized it wasn’t them.

* * *

The day passed slowly, even as late as it had started.

Iris stayed with Peter for most of it. She had a few tasks set out for the day, and he, too, had his work laid out for him in the lab, but there didn’t seem to be very much between either of them that they felt like doing. Kepler kept Peter company in the lab while Iris was busy, and he’d been content to work in the relative quiet that she left, but before long, the maid had appeared at his side again.

They passed the hours conversing over the second nearly-finished automaton. His spine was close to completion, a thick bundle of wires newly organized, in the process of being bound together and almost ready to thread through his casted vertebrae. The first automaton, on the other hand, was just about ready to function. He’d tested her mechanisms, powering them one at a time with the matter he’d managed to contain, and everything worked on its own. But not in unison, he’d discovered. Her core was nearly full, but at the time, Peter had hit another wall in his efforts to capture more blue matter. It seemed too much like poetic irony to him. A centimeter of empty space stood between him and a fully functional machine. And that was all he really wanted from her. She didn’t need to be pretty or resemble anyone anymore. If she worked, he’d be happy with her.

For once, when Johona came home, nobody needed to search for Peter. That was because he and Iris were both in the parlor with Kepler between them, waiting for her.

He heard the front door open and the sound of it echoed in the foyer. “Iris?” his friend called out.

“In the parlor,” Peter replied first.

In an instant, he heard the fast-paced staccato shuffle of Johona’s boots hitting the floor as she hurried towards them. She burst through the doorway to the parlor, still wearing her white nurse’s smock and carrying her travel bag, and her eyes widened when she caught sight of Peter. He stood up, then heard her bag hit the floor and in a second she rushed at him and caught him in her arms. Her hands fastened around his shoulders.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her face drawn and eyes clouded with worry.

“I’m fine,” he assured her.

“I’ve been worried about you since last night.”

“I know. And I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to leave you standing there.”

“It’s alright. I didn’t mind _that_ much, I only wanted to know that you hadn’t thrown yourself through a window or something like that. Your corpse would be pretty difficult to explain to the coroner.” She let go of him and turned to Iris. “Thank you so much for taking care of him,” she gushed. “I don’t know what either of us would do without you here. I honestly don’t.”

Iris smiled shyly and turned her eyes away. “I-it’s my pleasure, Johona. Really. I’m just doing my job.”

“Well, you’re doing a damn good job at your job.” She brusquely turned back to Peter and led him by the elbow to the couch. With his friend’s assistance, he toppled backwards and landed on the cushions, and she sat down beside him. “What the hell happened to you last night, if you wouldn’t mind telling me?”

“Cried myself to sleep,” Peter said with a resigned sigh. He glanced at Iris, who met his eyes with a knowing look. “Might have suffered an anxiety attack. Exhausted myself, slept, then woke up god-knows-when and now I’m here.”

Johona placed a hand on his shoulder. “I wish I could have helped you.”

“It’s fine that you didn’t. I’m better now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Johona. I’m okay.”

“Good, then. Good,” she said firmly, and more to herself than anyone else. “Because we are going to need to talk about this.”

The thought of discussing Taggart’s letter made Peter want to shrink away from everything, but he knew that wasn’t a viable option. “He’s not taking no for an answer anymore,” he said, repeating his thoughts from the night before. He spoke to remind himself of the facts, to keep himself rational. “No matter what I do, he’ll be sending his emissary to me.”

“Right, that Mr. Kahn he talked about,” Johona responded. “He’s going to be a problem. You haven’t seen a live stranger in months, and I don’t know how well a forced interaction will go over. It’ll be especially difficult, what with how big you’ve gotten.” Her hand darted out to poke at Peter’s unguarded stomach.

He tensed up, feeling defensive, but he didn’t swat her away like he usually did. Her annoying obsession with his deformed body didn’t bother him nearly as much as it used to. He was too tired to be irritated with her anyway, and there were more important things to worry about.

Johona seemed to intrinsically sense all of this, because it took her only a second to realize what was happening. Fearlessly, she took the opportunity to lay her hand on his belly. “This is new,” she quietly observed. “You’re not usually like this.”

“It’s been a long day,” Peter listlessly replied.

“It can’t be just that,” she contested, punctuating her words with a friendly pat before taking her hand back.

“Weren’t we talking about something else?”

Johona sighed heavily. “ _Mr. Kahn_ is going to be a _problem_ ,” she continued with overemphasized effort. “But it’s just your luck that I’ve had the day to think this over, and the doctor asked me if you’d shown any improvement with your illness.”

“My... illness?”

“Yes, remember? The mysterious illness that no doctor in San Diego could cure, so you sent for me, the Indian witch-woman, to see if I could make the great spirits heal you... or something like that?”

The epiphany struck then, reverberating through Peter’s skull like a clap of thunder. “Right, the illness” he murmured. He turned to Iris. “You remember that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” the maid replied.

“It worked on Miriam. The doctors you’ve worked under, too.” He paused and looked back at Johona, worry seeping into his thoughts. “Do you think Taggart is going to fall for that?”

“If he’s stupid enough to send us a rabbit in the mail, I don’t think that believing a man he hasn’t seen in years has fallen ill is too much of a stretch.”

Iris chimed in. “B-but what about Mr. Kahn?”

“She’s right,” Peter added. “If his emissary wants to speak to me directly, he’s going to see me, and-”

“He won’t.”

His eyebrows rose incredulously. “What do you mean, he won’t? Of course he-”

“If you cared to recall how we got Miriam to agree to let Iris serve you on her own, you would know why he won’t.”

An awkward silence settled. Peter glanced back and forth between Iris and Johona. The maid seemed to have no answer to give him, and his friend didn’t seem willing to supply one, so all he could do was turn back to her and shrug in confusion. It had been months since any of them had discussed the illness he’d faked, and he’d all but forgotten the details of their plot..

Johona caught on quickly enough and finally enlightened him. “Of course, Arthur Kahn is going to want to speak with you face-to-face,” she explained. “And Babclock might not be in a position to let you go, even to save you your health. But consider this. What if you were so sick, you happened to be contagious? Highly contagious?” She paused, a sly smile spreading across her face. “So contagious, in fact, that there was a chance that Mr. Kahn might catch the illness himself if he came too close?”

Just like that, Peter understood. A light in his mind flickered to life, and suddenly the cogs in it were turning again. “So let me get this straight. We keep stretching the mysterious-illness story, and let Taggart believe I’m so contagious that he can’t send Kahn to me?”

“Precisely.”

“Johona, that’s brilliant!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe I forgot about this. It’s the only thing that’s let me keep this quiet for so long. I can’t believe that I let something so important slip my mind!”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Walter,” Johona said, grinning proudly and flipping her raven hair over her shoulder. “You’ll have to get writing as soon as you can, though. Clock is ticking, and so are you.” Once again, she poked at his very distended belly for emphasis. This time, he swatted her hand away. “Hey!” she protested. “What happened to being indifferent?”

“I changed my mind,” he tossed back.

“Oh, come on. That’s not fair.” She reached out and tried to get at him, but he pushed her hands back, slapping at her wrists when she came too close. “Would you let it go for a second? I just want to-”

“No. I said no!” Peter retorted, his voice bubbling with laughter as he fought her off. He scooted himself to the opposite end of the couch and curled up in the corner, his arms shielding his stomach. Johona lunged at him, and he pushed her away with his foot. “Stop it, or I’ll have Iris tie you down!” Of course, she didn’t, and he was forced to turn to the maid and cry out, “Iris, hold her back!”

Iris, however, was stuck on the floor, laughing so hard that she could barely sit upright. She was leaned back on one arm, her legs crossed and her other hand failing to hold back her incessant giggles. Still, she struggled to stand and tottered to the couch on her wobbly legs, throwing herself down between Peter and Johona. The engineer quickly pulled her close to him in the corner, holding her in front of himself like a shield and melodramatically crying out “Saaaave meeee!”

She couldn’t do much, but she could block Johona from getting to him. So she attacked Iris instead. Johona’s fingers dug into Iris’s sides, left vulnerable without her corset. She started to mercilessly tickle her, leaving her squealing and breathless with laughter. With a desperate lurch, she turned herself around to face Peter and draped herself across him, surrounding him as much as she could. He tried to help her in return, putting his arms around her waist to keep her soft torso safe from his friend’s hands. Her face hovered near his neck, and he felt her excited breath rushing across his collarbone. Her hair, still unbound, brushed against his chin. He felt a lightness in his veins, a fluttering in his heart, and it made the sheer senseless joy of the moment even stronger. Everyone was in a pile, laughing like drunks, and even the twins seemed to be caught up in the excitement. He felt them both kicking wildly inside of him, and in the confusion, he felt Iris’s hand come to rest on his belly, fingers spread out like a warm, protective spider. Johona must have seen it, too, because then there was a faint lull in the frenzy of laughter.

His friend finally gave up trying to poke at him and sat back on her heels. “What, so she’s allowed to touch you and I’m not?” she asked, trying too hard to sound irritated.

“Well, she _is_ going to be raising them,” Peter pointed out.

“And _I’m_ keeping them alive so she can get that far. Does that sound deserving enough to you?”

Iris separated from him a little, just enough to look into his eyes. An unspoken agreement traveled between the two of them, and she slid meekly away from him. He sighed. “Alright, alright,” he conceded. “If you want to that badly, I suppose I don’t really mind. You’ve managed to rile them up a lot with that whole show, anyway.”

“Really?” his friend inquired, her face brightened by fascination. Not wasting another second, she quickly pressed her palms flat against the curve of Peter’s stomach and gasped in awe as she felt the frenzied stirrings underneath. He winced a bit when one of the little creatures struck its foot hard against her hand, but he couldn’t seem to stop smiling. As annoying as Johona could be when she wanted to be so close to him, there was something about the moment that kept everything else at bay.

He looked over at Iris, who was watching him with a shy smile on her face. Though Johona was the one with her hands on him, the maid was sitting beside him. Their hips were pressed close together, and the tips of her fingers were teasingly close to his. He inched his hand towards her, just a little, just enough to bring them together. At the first hint of contact, she wrapped her hand around his.

 _You know they’re yours_ , he thought.

Her smile twitched a little wider, and he saw a sparkle in her eyes. _As you wish_ , she seemed to say _._

A moment later, the twins started to calm down, and Johona finally let Peter be. “I really am glad about all of this, though,” she said.

“All of what?” he asked in reply.

“About you. How well you’re doing, and everything.”

 _Doing well?_ he thought. When remembering last night, the idea seemed almost laughable. “You really think so?”

“Of course I do. Both you and the twins seem healthy. And I’m a little surprised by how accepting you’ve become about this.”

“Well, I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

Johona pursed her lips and sighed. “I suppose not.” She glanced at the clock. “I’m the one cooking tonight, aren’t I?”

“I think so.”

“Right, then. I should see what’s in the pantry.”

As if on cue, Iris stood up from her place. “I-I’ll come and help you,” she said.

“Actually,” Johona cut in, “I was going to ask if you could maybe take Kepler outside for a little while. She likes to spend a little time in the grass before getting put back in her hutch.”

“Oh.” Iris seemed surprised, but not disappointed. “Alright.” She crouched down to pick the rabbit up from where where she had scurried under the coffee table.

“You can join her if you want, Peter.”

That, of all things, was surprising to him. Peter watched his friend with a bemused curiosity as she turned and started towards the hallway. “Are you sure you don’t-”

He meant to say _Are you sure you don’t want my help_ , but she had strode from the room before he could. Feeling remote, he turned to Iris. She smiled at him. “Do you want to?” she asked.

“Fresh air probably isn’t a bad idea at this point,” he replied. “You go on ahead. It might take me a while to catch up.

The maid nodded and followed Johona’s path from the room, carrying Kepler in her arms. The rabbit watched Peter over her shoulder until Iris turned a corner and disappeared, taking Kepler with her.

With some minor difficulty, Peter hauled himself up from the corner of the couch that he had wedged himself into, his legs and back straining from the effort. He quietly cursed himself, hating how perpetually tired he had been as of late, but eventually found his balance. Finally standing, he huffed a few breaths and started for the back door.

If his life wasn’t already a small wonder, he might have had something to say about the way that Johona was acting. He’d found a small note of strangeness to it, and it was far from the first time. It seemed to him like his friend was hinting at something, like she knew some vastly important fact that he didn’t and, in her typical fashion, was unwilling to tell him outright what it was. Lately he was beginning to feel like, for some reason, Johona had been purposely putting him and Iris into the same place at the same time. It had happened before, and for the most part, she had been fairly subtle about the strings that she pulled. This was probably the most direct that she had ever been.

Peter guessed at her reasons while he walked, but his head already felt scrambled. He supposed it didn’t really matter, why she was doing what she did. As much as Johona confused him, he knew that he enjoyed the time he spent with Iris. And maybe that was the vital secret that she knew. It wouldn’t be that hard to deduce that being around Iris calmed him in a way that little else could.

Early evening sunlight streamed almost horizontally through the windows at the back of the manor, and Peter squinted through the glare as he approached the back door. On the other side, he could see Iris kneeling in the grass, Kepler scampering in circles around her. Once again, he noticed a certain aura about her. It might have been the deep, slanted sunlight that made her glow that way. Or it might have been something else. Peter couldn’t be sure.

What did it matter if Johona wanted him to stay close to Iris? There was really no harm in it, he figured, and he happily stepped outside to join her.

* * *

 Days later, what would hopefully be the last letter to Taggart Babclock was sent.

Peter had started off by pretending that he was coming clean. He hadn’t wanted Taggart to worry, he’d written. Before now, he felt like what had befallen him wasn’t anything serious, that it wasn’t something that someone so detached from his life would need to know about. But the illness had been torturing him for months now, and it only seemed to be getting worse. All doctors he’d seen had given up on him, he wrote. He hadn’t had the energy to leave the house in weeks, couldn’t remember the last time he’d stepped outside, and an entire menagerie of other altered versions of the truth. He went on afterward to describe how the mysterious ailment happened to be contagious, how it had spread to one of the maids and even Johona, who had come to aid him when the doctors had failed. They were still in the early stages of the illness, but he assured Taggart that his level of severity couldn’t be far in the future. With a heavily armed madman to fight, Peter insisted that it wasn’t worth the risk for him to travel. If he didn’t succumb to the hardships of an overseas voyage, then surely the nameless illness would impair whatever defenses Taggart had on hand.

Several copies of the letter had to be written before Peter felt that it sounded convincing. Of course, Johona had collaborated with him, as she was a certified expert in what sounded like sickness and what didn’t. Be descriptive, she said, but don’t dramatize. So he’d done his best. Then Iris was sent off to the post office with the message in hand, and that was the end of it. All there was left to do was hope.

No one seemed sure what would come next. Johona seemed fairly secure that the letter would finally turn Taggart from his efforts to drag Peter to Africa. Peter himself wasn’t so sure, since in the last letter, Taggart had sounded fairly obstinate about the responses he’d been getting. And Iris... well, Iris never really said much on the subject. Peter had made a few attempts to ask her, but she never seemed to have a definitive response to give. She knew very little about Mr. Babclock, she’d say. She hadn’t the faintest idea what he was like as a person. Peter had tried to fill her in as much as he could, but still, she insisted that it wasn’t her place to judge.

So the night after the letter was sent, he found himself in the parlor. For the first time since spring, the fire was stoked. October was nearly at its end, and nights had started to turn cold again.

He was sprawled on a fainting couch, staring at the flickering blaze of gold in the sooty, brick-lined hollow in the wall. Kepler was close by, as she almost always was whenever Johona wasn’t around. Peter was almost surprised that the rabbit had taken such a liking to him. What with the ill-intentioned welcome he’d given her, he didn’t think he deserved so much. Yet there she was, resting on his chest with her nose buried in the collar of his shirt. He stroked his hand over her silky back, and her eyes squinted contentedly closed.

“Peter?”

There was only one person in the house who got his attention that way. He looked over his shoulder to see Iris standing a few feet away. She smiled shyly at him and came a little closer.

“Johona wanted to know where Kepler is, since she sleeps in the hutch in her room, but... I see you’ve found her.”

Kepler raised her head to wiggle her nose at Iris, making a smile twitch at the corner of Peter’s mouth. “She’s been in here all evening. A little surprising that she’s been this still for me.”

Iris leaned over the back of the fainting couch to scratch between the rabbit’s ears. “She looks so comfortable. I feel kind of bad about moving her.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure she’ll survive.” He shifted a little to straighten up and gathered Kepler into his hands. “Alright, Kep. Off you go,” he said, handing her over to Iris. She squirmed a little, trying to get back to her perch, but Iris had her calm again within a few seconds. The maid nodded cordially to Peter, then left the room without another word. He watched her go, and almost immediately found himself pondering her again. She’d seemed like there was something that she wanted to say, and yet she hadn’t said a word beyond what was vital. She was almost always like that.

As chance would have it, she was back at the doorway of the parlor only a few minutes later. “Peter?” she called out to him, and he turned around to face her.

“Yes?” he replied.

Iris exhaled, tight-lipped, her hands twisting around one another. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” was Peter’s instinctual response, but one he knew Iris had learned to see through. So he elaborated. “We’ve managed to sort most things out. The letter’s been sent, and all the rest is still a game of waiting. As far as I know, there isn’t very much more for any of us to worry about.”

“Do you think the letter is going to put a stop to this?” she went on and ventured a few steps closer.

There it was. Peter had known that something would come out eventually. As much as Iris liked to believe her thoughts were insignificant, he had for some time hoped that she would learn otherwise. “I hope it does,” he said equivocally. He swung his legs over from the long cushion, tucked them underneath himself and patted the now-empty space beside him. “Come. Sit.”

Iris obediently followed through, settling next to him with her hands buried nervously in the flounce of her skirt. “Johona showed me the last letter,” she confessed. “From Mr. Babclock, I mean.”

“It was within reason. We both know you want to understand. And if you’re going to be part of this conspiracy, it’s best that you do at the deepest level possible.”

“I wouldn’t call it a _conspiracy_ ,” Iris jested, a small smile coaxed from her lips. “It’s more of a mission, I’d say. A secret one.”

“As secret as they come.”

She let slip a ghost of a laugh, then schooled her expression back into seriousness. “But the way he worded his message... It was concerning. He sounds adamant.”

“He is. In the time we worked together, I knew him to be stubborn.”

“I remember. You’ve told me before.”

Peter couldn’t find it in himself to say anymore. He felt a heaviness in his chest gravitating toward Iris before she spoke up again.

“Do you really think that the letter will sway him?”

“I hope it does.” He was only repeating his answer from before, one he knew didn’t convey the truth. “But I fear that any attempt to stave him off will only encourage him to try harder.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” A line had etched itself between Iris’s eyebrows, and her face had fallen from its neutral expression. “What if he still sends Mr. Kahn?”

“Then I’m sure he’ll warn us beforehand,” Peter said. “And if that’s the case, we’ll be able to figure out something else.” His words had a forced note of finality, and he wasn’t sure if her was reassuring Iris or himself. He wasn’t sure which one of them needed it more, either. The only time he’d seen Iris this distressed was in the scant moments when she feared she’d done something wrong or failed to follow orders. After serving him for so many years, he’d thought that he could understand why that was, but right then, a growing suspicion appeared that told him that he was wrong, that he had never truly understood at all. Now she was more upset than he’d ever seen her, and it wasn’t her job that was on the line. It was him and the twins.

 _She really does care_ , his mind whispered absently. His heart thrummed in agreement.

“Peter... if anything...” Iris started to say, but she suddenly looked away from him, seeming suddenly afraid of what she was about to say. She looked away from him and hid behind her hair, staring at the fire like he had before. “If something were to happen,” she began again. “If something were to go wrong... I-I just want you to know I’d do anything to defend you. It doesn’t matter what. I only... I want you and the twins to be safe, and whatever that means for me... I don’t really care. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Anything?” he asked.

Iris turned back to him and stared into his eyes. “Anything,” she echoed, and one look at her assured him that she meant it.

For a second, Peter’s imagination was rampant with possibilities that he hoped the situation wouldn’t come to. If Iris had to purchase a shotgun and fire it into Arthur Kahn’s head as soon as he set foot in the house, he knew she wouldn’t hesitate. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he thoughtlessly murmured.

“But know that if it does, I would.”

Peter’s throat tightened, and he sighed, his gaze fixed permanently to hers. His thoughts went briefly back to her past, to the world she’d left behind and the trials she had suffered to reach the one where she resided. She was strong, so much stronger than him, and yet so much kinder. There was a purity in her heart that he couldn’t even hope to imitate with his own. _You’re too good,_ he thought. _Too good for the life you were given._

At last he gave in to the pull that urged him close to her. His arm wandered around her shoulders, and he rested his forehead against her hair. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Iris,” he said softly.

“You’d probably survive.”

“Don’t talk yourself down like that.” He slid his arm away from her shoulders and gently took hold of her wrists. “You have been everything that I couldn’t be. You’re here because of that, and even if you think you aren’t worth it, you deserve it. You’ve more than earned everything that I can give you.” His words caught in his throat, but still he went on. He guided her hands to his belly and let her cup her palms around the warm, glowing swell. “They’re yours. They’re yours, because you wanted them more than I ever could.”

Iris exhaled, her breath brushed his throat and he knew she’d heard the waver in his voice. She said nothing, though, only remained still, Peter’s head leaned against hers and her hands gently cradling his swollen stomach. If he focused, he could almost hear the cogs clicking in her head, trying to process what he’d said and what he really meant. Iris was perceptive. He was sure that she already knew what Johona had deduced and what he hadn’t even wanted to admit to himself until his friend had said it out loud.

Slowly, Iris drew her head back to look at him. “Th-there’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a while,” she timidly murmured, “but I never really felt I could ask you.”

“Go on ahead,” he replied. He wasn’t intuitive enough to know what she meant, but when it came to Iris, he felt he’d become decent at guessing.

With a deep breath, she scooted herself back, then leaned closer, wrapping her arms around his hips. Her head lowered past his chest, then came to rest on top of his protruding belly. It had grown large enough for the slope of it to flatten out a bit, just barely enough to keep her from slipping. For a moment, he stayed as still as he could for fear of any movement throwing her off, but no matter how he tried not to move, she still looked uncomfortable.

“Wait a second,” he said, and Iris immediately straightened up and looked at him. He shifted so his back was against the arm of the couch and stretched his legs out along the length of it. “Here. Like this,” he instructed, then guided Iris to lay down next to him, on her side with her legs layered over his. Smiling, Iris let her arms wind around him again and pressed her ear to his abdomen.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Yes, very,” she replied.

The room was quiet for a while as Iris lay there with her head resting on his belly, listening. Peter tried to breathe slowly, as if even that much would disturb the peaceful stillness in the room. One of Iris’s hands came up to delicately stroke his stomach, palm slowly running over the stretched fabric of his shirt. Without thinking, he let one of his own wander to Iris’s head and weave his fingers gently into her hair.

“What does it sound like?” he eventually asked.

“A little faded,” Iris described for him. “Not clear like it is with the stethoscope. But I still hear their hearts, and a little gurgling noise every time they move.” He felt her smile. “I know they’re there.”

“They know it’s you.”

“You think so?”

“Of course.”

There was another moment of quiet, then Iris spoke up again. “Peter, there’s something that I’ve been thinking about.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while...” she went on. “Did you ever want children? Before any of this happened, I mean.”

The question came as a surprise to him. It wasn’t something that he had thought about very often, not even after the whole fiasco that had brought the twins into existence in the first place. He had thought about it when he was young, obviously. Everyone did. It was something ingrained from early childhood, he knew, and everyone who raised children seemed to assume that their offspring would want to do the same. And maybe, in a few fleeting fantasies, he’d toyed with the concept. It had run through his head before, but never so much as it probably had for Iris.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s crossed my mind before. It has for just about everyone, I think, but I was never sure. I never felt like I was ready. I never knew enough, I never had the time or the money, everything was just... scattered and inadequate and I didn’t think I would be able to manage it.” He sighed, absently petting Iris’s hair. “But thinking about the future... I’ve never been sure, but I thought maybe I would. If I were with the right person... I’d thought about it with Delilah. Back then, I thought I had a future with her. But things never worked out that way.”

“What about now?”

“You mean, if I think I’m ready to raise children now?” He looked down at her, and she turned her head up to meet his eyes.

“It’s... only a question,” she said shyly. “I-I don’t mean anything by it. Only to say that a lot has changed. I think it has, anyway.”

“I don’t really think it matters what I’m ready for, at this point,” he said aimlessly. “They aren’t mine anymore. As soon as they’re born...”

“You’re starting to sound like me.” Iris glanced up at him, her lips curved in a smile, and his heart felt just the slightest bit lighter. Then it disappeared, and her eyes became distant. “I just...” She sighed, stroking her thumb in small circles over his belly. “I can’t help feeling like I’m stealing them from you.”

“We both know that’s not true,” he said assuredly, running his fingers through her hair again. “You can’t steal what’s being freely given.”

“Is it really?”

Peter swallowed hard and tried to ignore the tightening knot in his chest. “Of course it is.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *gentle saxophone solo*  
> Well that DnD game was very loud, I've changed my pen name for the tenth time and now it's the following morning. I'm going to go ahead and file this chapter under "things I worked on while deliriously tired."  
> I hope you nerds still thought it was nice.  
> I'm going by Snurgle now.  
> See you next chapter.


	18. When The Blue Breaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this my first official post as Snurgle?  
> I believe it is. This is my first post as Snurgle.  
> Anyway, volatileSoloiste is waiting for me to read over a revision of a story of hers, but because I'm a seflish asshat, I decided I would do this first. It's already almost 2 in the morning, so I'm going to have to make this fast. If there are any complaints about poor grammar quality and misspellings, feel free to take those up with her. Although I might end up going back, re-reading this chapter and fixing errors in the near future, solely because that's what I've been doing a whole lot instead of actually working on this story.  
> Seriously. My writing has hit a wall so immense, not even the Colossal Titan could tear it down.  
> (It's funny, because there's that Attack on Titan story I have that's been on hiatus for over a year now.)  
> Aside from resurrecting the depressing memories of all the projects I've stopped working on for some menagerie of reasons, I want to whine at cicada_s. Where are you, dude? Come back to me. My fragile self-esteem misses you.  
> That was stupid.  
> This story is even stupider, but I suppose that's the only real reason that the majority of us are here.

 

 

When Iris came sprinting down the lab stairs without asking permission to enter on the day halfway through first week of November that she was sent out to retrieve the mail, Peter knew right away that he’d gotten a response from Taggart Babclock.

The man had sent him a few before, but never so directly, nor with such a sense of haste or continuity. With the chasm of ocean between them, there was a great deal of travel involved in any communication being sent from one side to the other, especially the executive letters that Taggart seemed to prefer. But Peter knew better than most that technology had come a long way, and so, feasibly, his old friend of a friend could send messages just about as fast as he wished.

“What is it?” he asked when Iris reached the landing, even though he was already certain.

Panting, she scampered to his lab table and pulled an envelope out of her apron pocket. But it wasn’t a letter, as he had been expecting. This one was smaller, pale yellow, folded into a nearly perfect square. No blood-red _URGENT_ stamp. A telegram, he realized, one that had been sent overseas. He began to think that maybe he had underestimated Taggart’s desperation. He must have spent a fortune to get the message to the manor this quickly. If an economist like Taggart were willing to splurge so much, it couldn’t have been a good sign.

“Mr. Babclock’s s-sent another message,” Iris stammered, huffing as she set the envelope down on the table. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what it could be, b-but after what happened last time... I-I don’t think we can risk waiting to read this one.”

Peter nodded tersely in agreement and set his tools down on the slab to pick up the telegram. He glanced quickly at the return address, confirming his suspicion, and took up a small crafting razor to slash open the side of the envelope. He slid the card hastily out, unfolded it and read in silence.

**Mr. Walter STOP I have received your letter STOP Though I am sorry to hear of your illness I cannot retract my last statement STOP Thus far 23 more have been lost at Thaddeus Becile’s hand STOP I cannot afford to lose any more STOP Mr. Kahn has been booked for the next voyage to America STOP He shall reach San Diego by November 20 STOP If you truly are as ill as you claim to be, I am sure you will take proper precautions STOP**

_So this is it_ , he thought. _This is the play he’s decided to make._

Peter stared at the telegram until the lines of text blurred together, then his eyes drifted away to burn holes into the opposite wall. There it was, before him in writing, his current worst fear made concrete. Taggart wasn't backing down. Even under the threat of contagious disease, he would still risk the health of an old friend and his own fighting forces in order to set his business right.

It was all Peter could do not to crumple the paper in his hand and hurl it across the room.

Before he could do so much as move, Iris must have seen the rage beginning to burn in his eyes, because she quickly reached out and set her hand on his arm. “Let me see the telegram, Peter,” she gently requested. “Please.”

With a slow, strained breath, he acquiesced and handed it over to her. Iris read quickly, her fingers tightening around the paper with every passing second and a distressed sigh slipping from her mouth as she reached the end. Slowly, she set the paper down on the table.

“He isn’t giving up,” Peter said numbly.

“I see,” Iris replied.

“I was afraid that this would happen.”

“So was I.” There was a pause before she continued. “But we can fix this, can’t we? We still have the disease story. We’ve stretched it this far, and surely it can go a little further if we need it to.”

“But how much further?” he contested. “I don’t have many defenses with Taggart being as pigheaded as he is. I could have a deadly case of consumption and he still probably wouldn’t care.”

“Taggart, maybe, but we know nothing of Mr. Kahn.”

For a brief moment, Peter considered the possibility of her words, but his building anxiety brushed rationality away in a matter of seconds. “He’s getting his orders from Taggart, and you’ve seen how he’s been all this time. You _know_ he’ll stop at nothing.”

“But if Mr. Kahn is in California and his employer is an ocean away, what can Mr. Bablcock do to force his hand?”

The brakes screeched on Peter’s speeding train of thought. “Do you really think that a man working for Taggart Babclock could be selfish enough to disobey his boss’s orders?”

“It’s not selfishness so much as common sense.”

“Common sense,” he repeated back to Iris. “At this point I’m not even sure what that means to him. Taggart’s already told me that his whole livelihood is on the line, and he must think I don’t understand the situation. But I do, and it’s absolutely killing me. What do you think is worse, Iris? Making one sick man suffer, or letting dozens die at the hand of a mad scientist? Not only that, but losing his most valuable property _and_ his business?”

“But if he were to risk bringing an incurable illness back to Africa and infecting whatever forces he has, wouldn’t that be just as detrimental?”

Peter was quiet for a short time as the gravity of her words sank in, then he slowly nodded in agreement. “You have a point,” he said, “But he’s still being sent here. We can’t stop him from finding the manor. I don’t know what kind of _precautions_ Taggart expects me to take, but...” As he talked, the solution seemed to reveal itself from thin air, and Peter snapped to attention with the realization. “We’ll need to take this up with Johona.”

“Of course we will. We always do.”

“No, not just that. Think, Iris. She works in a hospital. She and the rest of the staff deal with contagious diseases all the time. Now, if we were to request she set this place up like a quarantine site- maybe make it look like it’s infested with cholera or tuberculosis or something like that...”

As he spoke, Iris’s face took on a look of understanding. “You think that would scare him off?”

“Hopefully. Or if anything, it would buy us time.”

“I’ll show Johona the telegram when she gets back,” Iris said, folding the message up and fitting it back into its envelope. “Then when you finish here, we can discuss this further and work out a plan.”

“Good.” Peter returned to his work and listened absently as Iris gathered the rest of the mail and started towards the staircase. Yet as her footsteps faded, he found himself unable to focus. He looked up again and called out to the retreating maid. “Iris?”

He heard her stop, backtrack a little ways down the stairs, and lean down past the landing. “Yes?”

As soon as she had appeared, Peter realized that he had nothing to say. Quickly, his mind scrambled for some kind of explanation for what he’d done. “I...” he unsteadily began. “I hope all of this works.”

Iris offered him a smile that seemed sad, but must have been meant to be encouraging. “I do, too.”

She started up the stairs again, and this time, he let her go. Once the door closed, he heaved a sigh of frustration and slipped out a few quiet curses to the empty air in the lab. Ever since the start of his grieving, it had been such a struggle focusing and making decent progress on his work. Then, for a short while, things had been going almost well. Now he’d begun lagging again with little to no explanation. His first lapse in productivity was easily explained, but much had changed since then. He no longer worked in pure and unnerving silence, and he wasn’t alone in the manor anymore, at times not even alone in his lab. Even more so, the distracting spectre of Delilah no longer hovered over him with such mournful intensity.

So what was slowing him down now?

He could have blamed any number of things. Taggart’s letters pulled his mind elsewhere as he tried to work. The blue matter was still refusing to cooperate with him, and as long as it did, he couldn’t run any of his machines in their entirety. Sometimes Kepler would do something charming while watching him from her hutch, and he would break from his work for a few minutes to play with her. And other times, things became... complicated.

The hash of memories made Peter cringe a little. The episodes he suffered through had been getting more frequent as of late. They never lasted long, but where once they most often recurred with at least a week in between, the interval between bouts of pain had been cut to only a few days. And still, even as long as they had been going on, they still hadn’t been explained. It might have been something esoteric to him, Johona had theorized. Something that only he experienced, because his body wasn’t supposed to be doing what it was doing and his structures were rebelling against it. As for the light that accompanied them... well, he’d been trying to theorize, but seemed to always be coming up empty.

He’d since learned how to better tolerate the pain they caused, and the instances didn’t seem to be harming him or the twins. But dear god, were they unpleasant when they happened.

Though it was a minor struggle, he still tried to go on with his work. Were it not for his lack of a core, the second automaton would have been nearly complete. His spinal column had been fully assembled and set into place in his long, flexible chassis. He’d decided to leave a little space in the wiring for the core to be placed, since the armored structure seemed a decently safe place for his power source to be housed and the most vital connections of his falsified veins were situated within the cast steel bones.

He would start putting together his core next, he ventured. Though he made little progress in filling the first one, he knew now that at least it could be done. The third would need tending to before long as well. He was still half-finished, little more than a skeleton. It set Peter’s heart with a faint twinge of guilt. Between the first automaton and his third, he’d spent so much time ignoring the very things that he had created.

 _I’ve done worse_ , he assured himself, remembering nearly six months earlier.

For what felt like hours, he worked at assembling the last details of the silver man on the table. He’d felt before how empty and desolate the lab seemed without any company. Not even Kepler was available, with Johona’s request that Iris let her outside for a time in the afternoon. What he wouldn’t give to listen to his wonderful maid talk, or to hear the rabbit’s energized scuffling and the jingle of her string of tiny bells. Finally the chassis was finished, the automaton’s whole body fully assembled, only the core left to be built and installed. Peter didn’t feel he could move on so quickly. He stood stock-still for a while and gazed at his handiwork, not sure what he felt he would gain from it, but sure that there would be something.

Maybe it was time for him to stop, he thought, at least for the time being. There was much to be dealt with, and he’d learned the hard way that, as much as his work gave him an emotional outlet, it was relatively impossible for him to get anything done when his mind was anxious and wandering. Thankfully, he soon heard Iris opening the door to the lab, and he finally felt right setting his work aside.

When he came upstairs, Johona was waiting in the library, still dressed in her nurse’s uniform. She studied her friend carefully as he emerged, leaning against a bookcase with her arms tightly folded across her chest and concern written plainly in her expression. “Iris already told me what happened, so there’s nothing you need to explain,” she said quickly. “You seem like you took the news a little better than last time.”

“It came as less of a shock,” Peter replied, deadpan.

“I really don’t think that anything could be quite as shocking as Babclock’s last letter.” She paused and nodded pointedly at Peter. “Well, other than-”

“Johona, this is the worst time you could have possibly chosen,” he cut in. “Besides, that joke is old and stopped being funny a long time ago.”

The nurse shrugged. “I could have reinforced a very important point with that, but if you’d rather I say nothing, that’s fine too.”

“I’ll take the latter. I have a feeling I knew what you were alluding to, and I’m already well aware of how important it is that I stay hidden.”

“Then I’d say you can also imagine the kind of aftershock there would be if Mr. Kahn were to see you in your condition.”

“Of course I do, which is why Iris and I were discussing this earlier.” Peter glanced over at the maid and nodded, giving her a cue to speak up. She nodded back to him and didn’t hesitate to oblige.

“W-well, I had an idea of sorts,” she began, sounding strangely unsure for being the inventor of the scheme in the first place. “We know Mr. Babclock doesn’t care about any illness, but there isn’t much that any of us know about Mr. Kahn. And if there’s any sort of difference between them, in terms of personality, we may be able to... um... _intercept_ him.”

Johona’s eyebrows rose. “Go on.”

“You work in a hospital. So you must know a lot about quarantining contagious diseases, right?”

“I know a few loons in the staff who still aren’t on board with germ theory, but the majority of us do.”

“Then... well, if you’d be able to get the materials... How difficult do you think it would be to make this place look like a quarantine ward?”

“A quarantine ward?” Johona echoed, her interest clearly piqued. She pensively furrowed her brow and gazed at the floor, tapping her fingers against her chin. “First off, locked doors are a large part of the setup. Most of our highly contagious patients aren’t allowed visitors. We might need coverings over some windows for filtration... perhaps have the furniture covered as well...” She paused, thoughtfully pursing her lips. “Borrowing so many materials from the hospital might raise a few questions, but if I keep on with the disease story, I might be able to throw off any suspicions.”

“So you’ll be able to do it?” Peter asked, a glimmer of hope in the back of his mind.

As an answer, his friend looked up at him with a wry smirk. “With the right balance of charisma and furtiveness, I think it’s possible.”

“Fantastic!” he exclaimed. “Then that’ll be the plan. We scare Kahn off with a false quarantine. About how long do you think all this will take to set up?”

“That depends on how evenly I can distribute my rounds of stealing hospital supplies.”

“There isn’t very much time,” Iris confessed. “M-Mr. Babclock said his emissary would arrive on the twentieth.”

“That’s it?” Johona seemed more relieved than anything else. “Then what does that give us... a little under two weeks, more or less? If that’s our timeframe, we’ll definitely be able to pull this off. Obviously, I’m going to need a hand from the two of you to make the house up completely.”

“I’ll be at your service whenever you need me,” Iris said automatically in her usual fashion.

“So am I,” Peter added. “All you have to do is ask.”

Johona looked at him, chewed at her lip in mock uncertainty and said, “I’m not so sure.” She squinted her eyes and studied him carefully, taking care to let her eyes linger around his middle for an extra second. “I can’t be letting you do any heavy lifting. Or dealing with heights. Your balance definitely isn’t what it used to be.”

Peter let out an exasperated sigh. “If there’s anything you don’t want me doing, just _don’t tell me to do it_.”

His friend grinned, probably holding down the urge to laugh. “I don’t plan to. Just giving you a general idea, Walter. Besides, weren’t you starting to lose your insecurity about all of this?”

“Don’t ask me,” he tossed back with a shrug. “Old habits die hard, and I find myself changing my mind a lot when it comes to you.”

“Well, whether you plan on feeling insecure or not is up to you,” she retorted with a snicker. “I’m still going to be here to make sure you watch yourself.”

“Are you still on about that? I thought you trusted me by now!”

“Old habits die hard, Walter.” With that, Johona started back towards the doorway. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got some rabbit-related business to attend to outside,” she said, then took care to give Peter’s stomach a casual pat before disappearing into the hallway.

He stared after her, sighed and turned to Iris. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand why she feels the need to turn this whole situation into a joke.”

“Maybe it’s her way of dealing with things,” Iris offered.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you’d probably agree that it’s a very serious predicament you’re in,” she started to explain. Peter nodded in agreement, and she went on. “I’ve seen before that some people use humor to deal with feelings that they would otherwise have a hard time expressing. You’re her friend, she’s yours, and since she’s traveled across a state and a half to help you, it must mean she cares about you very deeply.” The maid paused and briefly turned her gaze away. “She knows you’re suffering. And in that respect, it must be hard for her to watch.”

When she didn’t go on, Peter ventured a step closer. Iris wasn’t looking at him anymore, but from what he could see of her face, there was a subtle but undeniable sadness in her expression. “I wouldn’t call it suffering anymore,” he clarified. “Not exactly.”

She sighed and looked shyly over to him. “It was difficult for you before, though, wasn’t it?”

“It was. It was awful before, especially after I first found out. I was...” He trailed off in an exhale, raking his fingers through his hair. “I was still in a dark place, and the sickness certainly didn’t help. But things are different now. Everything’s changed. I used to hate it all so much. The twins, my body, my actions that had led me to this point. But I don’t anymore.” In that moment, he realized how he must have sounded, and he quickly stopped to correct himself. “By that, I mean... W-what I really wanted to say was... I’m not particularly fond of what’s happening to me, and I sure as hell don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand it, but I have a slightly better appreciation for it now.”

For a second, Iris seemed puzzled, but the expression was quickly replaced by a cordial smile. “I’m glad you do, I suppose,” she said. “And it’s good that...”

She suddenly trailed off, leaving the statement incomplete and nagging at Peter’s brain. “What is?” he asked, urging her to speak more.

“I-I was going to say it’s good that you’re not alone anymore, but... There’s really not much that I can do about what you decide after all of this is over. My only real hope is that you reunite with more of your friends from the Cavalcadium. They must miss you after all this time.”

“Not all of them. But some might.”

“It’s always worth the effort to find out, if you wish it.”

Her words got Peter to thinking. It had been a long time since he’d spoken to anyone other than Johona of his own free will. He wasn’t even sure what reason he’d had for abandoning all contact with his Cavalcadium friends. Of course, he’d been depressed and irrational after losing Delilah, and there was an extensive list of things he’d done that he couldn’t otherwise explain. But the fact that he couldn’t follow his own train of logic set something ticking in his head. His past self sure had gone out of his way to make life more difficult in the future. Yet, in spite of his inexplicably rash actions, Iris seemed so hopeful. For someone with a past like hers, she had a surprising amount of faith in people’s ability to love.

Even with so many doubts swimming inside his head, he knew that she was right. There was much he wished to find out, but he wasn’t sure what would be worth the effort. Maybe Iris was just as curious to know such things as he was.

* * *

To Iris, nights were odd nowadays.

It was a way of life that she hadn’t been given the chance to experience in quite some time. She was sure that she had never had company this continuous since the days before her accident. Back then, of course, she had been easier on the eyes and felt a great deal more hopeful about her future. For the time being, she couldn’t be sure what to make of her situation. She was sure that it didn’t involve the feelings and significances about which she spent her time fantasizing. It nothing more was her fulfilling her purpose as a servant, as well as showing the basic kindness of any decent human being. It must have been, and nothing more, but that did nothing to change the way she felt.

It had been a long time since she’d last shared a bed with a man, and it was a feeling that she had sorely missed.

Peter hadn’t asked her about it straightforwardly. He rarely ever did anything that way. But after the night he’d cried himself to sleep on her shoulder, she hadn’t been able to see him the same way, and it was obvious that he knew it just as well as she did.

Peter Walter wasn’t ordinary. She’d known that much from the day he had hired her. But it had never seemed like her place to find out more about it, so she never made the effort to do so. Then the past months had turned her image of him completely around. He wasn’t only intelligent, passionate and forward-thinking, like she had always known him to be. There were dark clouds hanging over his past, hardly any different from her own. He was volatile and emotional. He was fragile in ways she had never imagined. Peter was imperfect, just like any other person on the planet, and she still loved him just as much for it.

It had taken a few days for him to confess to her about the difficult nights he’d been having. He knew that he was supposed to be getting periodic rest, he’d said, and his body was in perfect accordance with that statute, but his mind was another entity. Some nights, while he drifted off, it started dwelling on his fears and regrets and the memories of things that he’d lost. It had taken even more time for her to find out that he suffered from nightmares. That hadn’t been until after he’d first asked her to stay in his room until he fell asleep.

She hadn’t bothered to keep count of the times he made the same request. It was nearly every night now that he went to her and shyly asked that question. He wasn’t proud of it, she could tell, but he knew that he had to pay more attention to his needs. Johona had made it clear that he needed to take better care of himself, as she’d mentioned in the stories she told when her friend wasn’t present to hear.

Iris had learned quickly how badly he needed help. Every night, she would sit beside him in the soft yellow glow of the lamp on his bedside table and whisper to him, telling stories and rambling on until his eyes fluttered closed and he drifted off too far to respond to her. The first time she had spent the night with him, it had been an accident, but it quickly became a part of the habit. He’d woken up gasping and murmuring that night, shaken beyond comprehension, and Iris had automatically taken to comforting him and lulling him back to sleep. She hadn’t counted how many times that had happened, either.

What was once incidental had become a ritual, and that night Iris sat on the edge of Peter’s bed and quietly read a book while he stood out on the balcony and watched the stars come out.

The room was envelopingly quiet. Iris felt almost as if her ears had been wrapped up with a cotton shroud, turning all the noise of the outside world into a distant, gossamer blur. She looked up from her book and out to the tall french windows that opened onto the balcony. A chill breeze whispered through, ruffling the light curtains around the open door. Peter stood on the other side, a silhouette outlined by the moon’s pale glow.

Seeing him out there, Iris momentarily forgot her book and took to observing him instead. She couldn’t see much of him, with the moon behind him and the lamplight too weak to reach outside, but when she focused, she could pick out the small details of his profile, the forward flick of his unwaveringly messy bangs and the sharp angles of his nose and jaw. His chin was turned up, and she could just pick out the glimmer of his eye as it studied the bright pinpoints of the constellations above. He stood out like an elongated shadow, tall and slender but strangely bloated around the middle. Were it not for his hair and flat chest, his silhouette might have been mistakable for that of a heavily pregnant woman. She could see the glow in his belly, too. It stood out stronger than ever in the low light.

He’d been trying to find out what it was, he had told her, but so far hadn’t settled on anything. And there hadn’t been many solid explanations for the painful episodes he’d been having in the past weeks, either. All the unanswered questions made Iris worry, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do to resolve them. She could only keep watch over him and make sure no harm came to him for as long as she was needed. And whatever would come after that... well, she didn’t know, but she trusted he would do what he felt was right.

For now, though, he was her responsibility. So she stayed close to him, simply watching.

Peter looked slightly different as a silhouette. Where he stood, she found herself following the contours of his body, lines and shapes being all she could see. Her eyes lingered for a second on the blue swell of light at his midsection, then elsewhere, and she noticed then that there was an odd curvature to his spine that she hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe she had, but it had always been more subtle in the light. His back was arched more than normal, and he seemed to be holding onto the railing for support, trying to compensate for the extra mass that was weighing him down and growing steadily heavier. He’d been fairly quiet about how much strain he was under while trying to hold himself upright, but as always, a few complaints had slipped through the cracks.

Iris wondered if it was hurting him, to stand out there like that. He’d been on his feet all day. And surely, if he was lost in thought now as he nearly always was, Babclock’s latest message ensured that his stream of consciousness wasn’t a pleasant one. Unwilling to leave any matter up to question, Iris slid a ribbon bookmark into the pages of her novel and left it on the corner of the bed while she pulled her nightdress tighter around her and stepped outside.

Peter didn’t notice her at first. Then when her shadow cast onto the balcony railing, just inside his line of sight, he quickly turned towards her. His face was blank, looking even paler than usual in the moonlight. Iris’s lips curved gently into a semblance of a shy smile. “Aren’t you cold out here?” she asked.

“Not really,” he replied. “I’ve never minded the cold much. Besides, I’ve got these two keeping me warm.” He nodded down at his bulging stomach, a reciprocating smile starting on his face.

Out of habit, Iris ventured closer and placed her hand on it. His body was warm like something freshly baked, a welcome contrast to the cooling night, and her heart thrummed with excitement when she felt one of the twins stir at her touch, but she didn’t let herself linger for too long. She leaned against the railing and looked up at the dark, dappled sky above them. “The stars are pretty tonight, aren’t they?”

“I suppose they are every night. To my knowledge, they don’t change very often, unless the weather does.”

Something in his voice didn’t sound right. In a second, her attention had turned to him again. “It’s not all that special to you, is it?” she gently asked.

“I can appreciate it for what it is, but...” He sighed and shrugged instead of finishing his sentence.

“Then why did you come out here?”

He glanced back up at the stars and was quiet for a moment, as if they would give him an answer of some kind. Iris watched him, seeing his face become lined with thought, until finally he spoke. “I find it calms me down sometimes. I was never an astronomer, but I’ve met a few. If I’m busy trying to find constellations and remember their names, it tends to take my mind off of other things.”

“That’s an interesting habit. I’ve never had much time to stargaze, but if I did, I might have tried it once or twice.” A few quiet seconds passed as her eyes scanned the sky, searching for something she recognized. She pointed up at a collections of bright spots in a horizontal line. “I know that one’s Orion. The belt’s always easy to recognize. And I’m pretty sure just about everyone knows about Ursa Major,” she added, pointing out another vague shape in the sky.

“I’ve been told Pisces is out this time of year, but I haven’t been able to find it.”

“Really?” Iris glanced over at him, then back up at the sky. “It’s right above us, a little to the east. See?” She extended her arm out again. “I’ve never thought that it looked like a fish, though. Seems more like the formation that birds use when they migrate. I suppose all constellations are like that, though. Andromeda looks nothing like a princess, and Phoenix is hardly a bird at all.”

As she spoke, her hand drifted from one formation of stars to the next, pointing each one out as she spoke its name. It took a moment for her to realize she was rambling, and she stopped herself, but in the meantime she had somehow captured her employer’s intrigue. He glanced sideways at her, seeming impressed. “For someone who claims to never stargaze, you seem to know a lot about this.”

His words made Iris blush, and she quickly turned her gaze down, thankful that the darkness hid the redness that was surely blooming in her cheeks. “I-I wouldn’t say _a lot_ ,” she said dismissively, her fingers twisting nervously in her hair. “I-I’ve only read a little, here and there... n-nothing extensive... Just some bits and pieces from science and history when I was still a child...”

“That can’t be all there is,” Peter pressed on, an eager smile on his face. “Astronomy isn’t the most common knowledge. Where did you learn all of this from?”

“L-like I said, just a few things I’ve read,” she stammered. Feeling unexpectedly nervous, she glanced back at the open door behind them. “I think we should go back inside.”

“Why? Are you cold?”

For a split second, Iris was tempted to say yes, if only to see what his response would be, but the logical side of herself reminded her that she knew better. “N-not especially,” she said. “I-it’s just late. Johona said you should be getting more consistent rest.”

Peter sighed, gazed up at the sky for one last moment, then turned to Iris. “You’re right,” he agreed, sounding more tired than before. “And Johona is, too. God knows she’s practical in every way I’m not.”

Iris let slip a little laugh, then led Peter back into the bedroom, letting him cross through first and closing the balcony door behind them. The curtains settled as the last of the night breeze disappeared. Iris quickly followed her employer and removed her novel from the corner of the bed. Peter eased himself onto the mattress and laid down on his side, then went about the arduous task of arranging an array of pillows around himself to keep himself comfortable. Iris helped as much as she could, and when her employer finally had the arrangement right, he cozied himself up against her side and closed his eyes. The maid leaned back against what remained of the pillows and gingerly slid her arm around him to settle her hand on his head. Her fingers carded slowly through his hair, and he sighed, calming down at the feeling of her learned touch.

“You want to know something, Iris?” he murmured after a long, silent moment.

“Shoot,” she replied.

“I think you’re a lot more intelligent than you believe you are.”

Iris’s heart skipped a beat. She stared down at the man beside her, stunned into temporary silence. _What prompted this?_ she wondered. Cautiously, she asked, “W-what do you mean by that?”

“Not very much. Only what I said.” He paused, then added. “Maybe it isn’t you at all. Maybe it’s just the rest of the world that tells you to think that way.”

“What is the world telling me?”

“That you’re worth less than you are. I don’t know if it’s true, or if you’re just modest, but...” He trailed off, mumbling sleepily to himself, then spoke up again. “I was afraid to bring it up with you, only because I didn’t know if it would upset you or not. I got the impression you don’t like people prying, but I just couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. I thought you should know, at the very least.”

 _He’s too drowsy to know what he’s saying_ , Iris thought. “Th-that’s kind of you to say, Peter.”

“I mean it, though. You’re very much more complicated than you seem. You... perplex me, Iris. That isn’t something I’ve found myself saying about many people.”

Iris wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or ashamed. She was sure it wasn’t a normal practice for employers to talk this way about those they hired. Then again, it wasn’t exactly normal for a man to be sharing a bed with his employee. She’d realized long ago, though, that “normal” was the very last word that could be used to describe Peter.

Her fingers ran lazily through his hair again, and she murmured, “I can’t possibly be that fascinating.”

“There you go again.” Peter shifted a little closer to her, so his forehead brushed against her ribs and the pillow he clutched to his torso was compressed between them. “I’ve told you before how much you mean to me,” he whispered, his voice slow and fading. “You know that I need you here. What you’ve done for me... it’s beyond anything... anything at all that I could have asked for.”

Iris felt her chest fluttering, and she tried to ignore it. She only hoped that he couldn’t hear her pulse pick up with his head resting so close to her. “I want to tell you the same thing, Peter,” she whispered back, her words sounding like little more than a complicated exhale. “I wish I could, but it wouldn’t sound right.”

“Why... wouldn’t it?”

“It wouldn’t,” she affirmed. “But know how much I wish I could.”

“Okay,” Peter breathed. He didn’t say anything more for a long while, and when the rise and fall of his chest began to slow and even out, Iris was almost sure that he had fallen asleep. Then, out of nowhere, he spoke up again in a soft, drawling voice. “You’re going to be an amazing mother, Iris,” he mumbled. “I just know... you will.”

A stunned silence fell in the wake of his words. Iris waited for him to speak again, but he never did. Finally, she worked up the resolve to whisper, “Peter?” There was no response, so she tried again. “Peter, are you still awake?”

Still, there was nothing. He was fast asleep at her side. A small smile graced Iris’s lips, and she leaned carefully over her employer’s motionless form to shut off the lamp. With small, cautious movements, she pulled back the covers and scooted herself into place next to him. Carefully, she reached out her hand and laid it on the pillow beside his, her knuckles just barely brushing his wrist. Peter twitched a little, but didn’t wake up. Iris gazed at him for a few moments longer before finally letting her eyes close.

“Goodnight, Peter,” she whispered.

* * *

Morning came too fast. It did by Peter’s standards, anyway, since when he awoke, the sun hadn’t yet managed to properly rise.

Peter moved one arm out from under the covers to rub at his eyes. As he did, he felt his hand brush over someone else’s. There was a soft sigh on the other side of the mass of pillows that had held him in place all night. Curious, he craned his neck to raise his head from the pillows and peer over the edge. Lying next to him, just a few inches from his face, was a disarrayed cloud of dark, curly hair. He squinted and leaned a little closer, careful not to disturb the warm, motionless form under the covers beside him. Just past the curtain of her hair, Iris was sleeping peacefully. Her face was nestled into the pillow that divided them, her eyes closed and fluttering gently. Her hands clutched unconsciously at the plush that surrounded him. She must have been reaching for him in her sleep. Peter wondered briefly what she was dreaming about, then turned his head to look out at the state of the room.

Weak grey light just barely filtered through the curtains, illuminating the room just enough for him to see. Peter wasn’t sure when the last time was that he had seen the world in this condition. It had to have been years. Usually when Iris stayed the night in his room, she would wake up before he did and leave him to sleep a few hours longer while she started breakfast. 6:30 in the morning, that was when she usually left. The sun was at least partially up by then. If it wasn’t now, Peter estimated that it was even earlier than that. Estimating was all he could do, since the room was too dim for him to see the clock on his dresser.

The pull of the warm covers was nearly irresistible in the cold morning air, so Peter settled back down and tried to go back to sleep. But the longer he laid still, the less of he felt the urge to stay in place. There was a certain energy in his veins, now that he’d seen the sun, and his mind seemed totally unwilling to drift off again. That, and the arrangement of pillows had been disturbed, and he couldn’t fix them without waking Iris. His only options were getting up or lying there in discomfort until 6:30 arrived. When put into perspective, the former option was far more preferable.

It was a minor struggle for him to get out of bed quietly. Peter’s limbs were still numb with sleep, but the pillows softened his movement just enough for him to slip out without eliciting so much as a breath from Iris. With a huff, Peter pulled himself to his feet. He slunk across the room to his closest and pulled together a haphazard outfit for the day. So long as he was awake, he figured he may as well get some work done.

When he emerged, fully dressed, Iris was still motionless under the covers and fast asleep. Seeing her there made his heart feel warm against the cool air around him. _Or maybe it’s just my stomach_ , he pondered, even though he was almost sure that it wasn’t. The same thing had happened so many times before that his subconscious had learned to tell the difference, even if his conscious mind wouldn’t acknowledge it.

In the low light, his shirt barely did a thing to dissipate the glow under his skin. The soft blue light shone through the fabric like a candle through the paper shade on a lantern. As absurd as the idea was, it actually proved useful in generating a small circle of light, just enough to find his way in the dimness. He passed by the clock on his way to the door and was able to get a cursory look at its face. The time was a just short of 5:45 in the morning, and if the day was to be an average one, Iris wouldn’t be awake for another forty-five minutes, give or take a few. He had no intention to disturb her. As much as she was fond of telling him that he needed rest, she needed hers as well, maybe even more so than he did, if only because she was so apt to deny herself of it in favor of work.

Peter wandered out into the hall and down the stairs, trailing one hand along the wall to feel his way. There wasn’t another living thing in sight, not even Johona, who he knew to sometimes precede even the sunrise. It had been a long time since he’d been faced by such a pure sense of solitude. As he walked, curtainless windows made the darkness recede into the corners a bit, but the emptiness still reminded Peter of the previous life he’d led.

He tried to push the memory away and stopped by the kitchen on the way to the lab to snatch up a few of Iris’s cranberry scones and boil half a kettle for tea. In the middle of it, he heard a rustle from elsewhere in the house. He ventured out to find the source, which happened to be Kepler’s cage in the parlor. The rabbit was already awake at this unspeakable hour of the morning, likely hungry and very bored. Peter set her free from her hutch and took her to the kitchen to feed her some vegetables from the pantry. It was a little odd for Johona not to haven taken the rabbit to her room for the night. Maybe she’d been just as preoccupied as he had been the night before. Whatever the reason, it was now up to him to keep Kepler company, so he carried the rabbit on his shoulder as he went downstairs to the lab.

The sub-basement’s glaring fluorescents were a welcome change in comparison to the half-darkness of the rest of the house. His three automatons were there waiting for him in their various stages of completion. After settling Kepler into her lab hutch, he set right to work. The second automaton still needed a core to be housed in the socket of his spine, and the third, though most of the mechanisms in his body and limbs were in progress, still needed outer shells to be installed. And eyes, Peter noted. He still hadn’t finished his eyes.

The second’s core could wait, he wagered, at least until he’d finished the parts most vital to the function of the third. Yet even as he worked, he found his attention drawn intermittently to his first creation. She was so close to being finished. Only a bit more of blue matter would be needed to power her up, and yet it seemed that trying to synthesize more of it was all he hadn’t been doing lately.

Certainly, right now, he could pick up where he left off. He was sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to generate just a touch more. Maybe the core would be stronger now, as well. The collection stored in the first core was no longer dull and translucent. Over time, as more was added, the matter gained more color and substance and its radioactive glow had become considerably brighter. It seemed to have gained a new life. It wouldn’t be difficult to finish what he’d started. Maybe this time, he’d be able to awaken her.

Peter cast a considering glance at Kepler. The rabbit watched him with her beady grey eyes, totally unaware of what was going on before her. If he tried to do this with her in such close proximity, there was the chance she might be affected by the radiation. The thought made Peter cringe. If blue matter had the same effect on all living creatures as it had on him, he couldn’t imagine what the consequences would be. He didn’t think he’d be able to manage a whole litter of rabbits as well as Kepler. He went to the hutch, removed her briefly to drag her hutch to the furthest corner of the room, then placed her back in. With the rabbit a safe distance away, he could begin the summoning process.

It wasn’t long at all before he’d managed to collect a sizeable pool of blue matter in his palm. This time, it had come to him easier than ever. There was no struggle to pull it from the source material, no nagging feeling that it would turn to liquid and slip through his fingers or vaporize suddenly like it had so many times before. He counted the minutes that it stayed. One passed, then another. After five, he had estimated, it was usually safe to try and capture it in the core.

The required time passed, and the matter in Peter’s hand remained just as solid as ever. Slowly, keeping himself as level as he could, he made his way to the first automaton. He undid the latches on her core with his free hand and carefully opened it, exposing the swirling semi-solid gem of blue inside. With a steadying breath, he leaned over his creation and slowly lowered his hand toward the open core. His hand tilted ever so slightly to allow the viscous substance to spill from his open, gloved hand and into the container.

Except it didn’t.

Peter stood waiting for far longer than he should have. He realized right away that something was wrong. He shook his hand a little to try and loosen the substance, but it still didn’t budge. The matter wasn’t moving the way that it normally did. In other experiences, he had found that in most situations, the substance either wanted to dissolve into its surroundings or, if possible, join with whatever was the nearest mass of its kind. He’d never seen it remain in a singular puddle. It had never wanted to stay like this before.

With a sigh, he lifted his hand away from the core and stared at the pool in his palm. _Now what?_ he thought despondently to himself. Then, as if they had an answer, he felt the twins start to move.

It happened suddenly. Peter inhaled sharply at the sudden flurry of motion in his stomach. Up until that point, they hadn’t been very active. He’d thought that maybe they were still asleep, or that there wasn’t enough room in his body to accommodate them anymore, what with how fast they’d been growing. They rarely ever put forth the effort to move like this anymore, at least not without provocation.

Holding the blue matter at an arm’s length, he gently placed his free hand on his belly, pressed his fingertips against it and shushed them. That usually seemed to work, and he was sure that by then, the twins understood what the sound meant. The more active twin kicked against his palm for a second, then the both of them finally stilled.

Peter took a breath and returned to the task at hand. If he wanted to finish this, he would need to focus, and he couldn’t do that when the twins were squirming inside of him like this. The little creatures seemed to know that as well, because only minutes later, they had started to move again. Peter tried to settle them down, but this time, they seemed more reluctant. They eventually did go still again. But that was far from the end.

Almost as soon as it had stopped, it started again. Peter tried to ignore it at first, having given up on trying to control what the twins did, but he couldn’t last very long. One of the little creatures kicked at him, hard, causing him to wince and double over. He held onto the edge of the lab table, no longer concerned with trying to hold the blue matter in his hand, since it seemed unwilling to leave his palm anyway.

Peter struggled to straighten up, now breathing heavily, his pulse picking up speed as panic started to set in. There were only two reasons he knew of for the twins to be thrashing around so much; either he was distressed, or they were. Whichever reason it was, only one thought remained steady in his mind: _This isn’t good._

Impulsively, his hand went to his stomach again, as if to hold steady the frantically writhing twins. He tried to calm them, but something deep in his soul knew that nothing would work. Something beyond him was making them act like this, and he couldn’t even begin to guess what it was, and as the realization sank in, it absolutely terrified him. He looked down at his distended belly. The twins were squirming with such frenzy that he could see it, their flailing limbs pushing strange amorphous shapes out against his skin.

“What is it?” he whispered to them, pleading for an answer. “What’s wrong?”

There was no answer to be given though, only more wild thrashing, so much that Peter had doubled over again and had to cling to the lab table to stay on his feet. He stared straight ahead at the still face of his automaton, his first creation, and the unblinking glass lenses of her eyes stared back. His gaze moved down to her core, the swirling amalgam of blue matter, then the pool that settled in the hollow of his own palm. All of a sudden, it felt warm. Extremely and inexplicably warm. Almost like...

_No... no, that can’t be..._

The warmth turned into searing heat, and before he knew it, Peter’s hand was being scalded. He cried out in pain and tried to shake the glove off, but just like the blue matter, it refused to be moved. His hand twitched and his nerves froze, his fingers clawed in agony as the strange substance burned hotter and began to disappear.

Or.. no, it wasn’t disappearing at all. Peter felt the searing heat burrowing closer to his skin, then the odd and vaguely slimy feeling of blue matter against his palm. It was phasing though his glove. Peter pulled frantically, trying to get it off, but no matter how he tried the accessory still wouldn’t obey him.

In a sudden, desperate movement, he slammed his hand down on the automaton’s open chest, right next to the open core. Blue matter preferred to dissolve into its surroundings, but joining a larger mass must have been at least second-best. Peter’s numb, paralyzed hand hovered shakily over the opening, a pitiful attempt at coaxing the matter into joining its own kind. “C-come on...” he hissed through his teeth. “Please... please...”

But it didn’t. Instead, the glassy surface of the matter in the core began to ripple and shift. Its gentle blue glow, which had been dull and lifeless for ages, still a fraction of its former self, flared unexpectedly to life. With a sudden lurch, it spilled over the edge of the container and latched onto Peter’s hand.

The engineer screamed and reeled back, pulling his hand rapidly away from the core. The blue matter stretched along with him like a string of melted caramel, refusing to break. His hand felt as if it were cooking inside his glove. The heat intensified as more blue matter slid underneath the protective leather and seared against his skin. It was spreading out, like a predatory, shapeless parasite, encasing his hand in a layer of glassy, luminous blue and scorching every inch of skin it covered.

There was a sharp pinch at Peter’s wrist, then another on the back of his hand, not unlike the feeling of a syringe sliding under his skin. He gasped and choked out another ambiguous, pained noise. His legs staggered blindly backwards until he hit the lab table a few feet away. He sank back against it and slid to the floor, his arm held out in front of him, paralyzed with pain.

 _What’s happening?_ The thought absently crossed his mind now. _What is this?_ He knew it was a question he should have asked long ago. Knowing would do him no good now.

He felt another pinch, and then another, like a needle had caught every blood vessel there was to be found in his hand. They were creeping past his wrist now, invisible spires slithering under the skin of his forearm. He felt the heat pulsing through his veins. It seared its way up his arm, bolted through his chest and wrapped its white-hot fingers around his heart.

Peter’s arm fell limp and useless at his side. His vision was starting to go hazy, and his whole body seemed to be turning to stone, everything numb and hot and completely useless. The twins were still savagely kicking. That he could feel, and he wanted to calm them down and tell them things would be fine, but he knew it was all beyond him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t tell them what he didn’t know to be true.

He was staring blankly ahead, panting with each breath. _Don’t let them die_ , he begged some nonexistent deity on the lab table across from him. _Do whatever you want with me, but let them live. Just let them live._

Energy surged up through his spine and exploded behind his eyes. His back arched against the table. He let out an earsplitting scream. There was a loud, cacophonous sound, and everything was consumed by a blinding white light.

**Yes. You.**

The voice came from everywhere at once, a singularity, but like a choir of strangers speaking all at once.

**You will do nicely.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know those times when you have a chapter that you genuinely forgot was important to the rest of the plot and then you read back through it and you're like "what is this."  
> Well, that's what just happened to me.  
> I'm barely awake, so I'm going to stop now  
> See you next chapter.


	19. Rabbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the gentle lilting melodies of Studio Ghibli Complete Piano Collection play in the background, I sit at my laptop and proceed to edit and post yet another chapter of this unspeakable atrocity called a fanfiction.  
> I'm lethargic, but stupid things make me happy, and this is one of them. Studio Ghibli is another. It's been a while since I last saw Spirited Away. Food never tastes as good as Studio Ghibli can make it look.  
> But that's not important right now.  
> Can I thank some people? Because even though my brain is being useless and I can't remember some of their names, I know that somewhere out there in the universe, cicada_s, volatileSoloiste and some others are supporting me and my shitty hobbies. By the way, cicada_s, I know you read fast and you can totally just binge this whole story at your convenience whenever you want, but it would be nice if you, I don't know, consistently kept up with the story and told me how it was? Thanks, buddy. You're a real pal.  
> CONTENT WARNINGS? Maybe, I guess. Radiation, loud noises, minor explosions, and the weirdest shit you've ever fucking seen.

 

_ BANG. _

The sound came out of nowhere. It was muffled, almost distant, but tore through the air like a gunshot in the next room. It rattled up through the floorboards of the parlor, shook the house’s foundations and nearly knocked Iris off of her feet.

The maid let out a startled gasp as she stumbled and just barely caught herself on the broom she’d been using to sweep the floor only a second earlier. She slumped forward, leaning against the handle, her heart shuddering in her chest as she caught her breath. The initial shock started to wear off, and she straightened up and pushed her hair away from her face to look around the room for the source of the noise. 

As far as she could see, there was nothing there that might have caused it. Then startle wore off further, and Iris could think a little more clearly. Finally she realized that the shockwave had come from underneath her. His name was on her lips before she’d even had the time to think it.

“Peter,” she whispered to the empty air. In the same second, she spun around, let her broom drop to the floor and dashed towards the library. 

There was no sudden noise to follow up the first. Somehow, the silence left ringing in her ears spurred her to run faster. Her head was reeling, her mind a disarrayed vortex of dread.  _ What happened? Where did that noise come from? Why did it made the house shake like that? Has something gone wrong? Is Peter okay? Are the twins okay? They have to be. They can’t be hurt. They can’t be- _

“Peter!” Iris shouted as the basement door slammed open. She bolted down the stairs, moving so fast she nearly fell forward, stumbled to the landing and called out to him again. “Peter?!”

Her eyes frantically scanned the room. Kepler’s hutch had been moved into the corner, and the rabbit was thumping her feet on her hutch floor in an absolute panic. Somewhere on the floor, standing out against the dingy grey floor, she thought she saw the blurry outline of a shape swathed in white and smeared with dark stains. A lab coat. Machine oil. A strangled noise burst from her lungs and she sprinted the rest of the way down the stairs, across the floor and towards Peter. He was lying motionless on his side, eyes closed, limbs sprawled as if he had fallen that way and never had the chance to align himself. His hair was singed at the ends, his face and neck spotted with faint blue burns. Iris’s heart turned to stone and she felt her stomach drop. Something very bad had happened, and she couldn’t begin to fathom what it was. 

“P-Peter?” she stammered weakly. She put her hand on his shoulder and gently shook him only to get no response. She called his name again and gave him another shake, her fingers tightening as adrenaline poured into her bloodstream. Still nothing. Iris’s breath caught in her throat, ready to charge itself into a mournful scream, when she saw the side of his ribs shudder. He coughed once, then his chest fell into a steady rise and fall. Her employer was breathing.

Iris nearly collapsed under the wave of relief that came crashing over her. “Oh, god... thank Christ...” she murmured as she leaned over him and gathered his limp body into her arms, pulling him close. “Peter?” she said again, still desperate to wake him. “Peter, are you there?”

Peter’s eyelids fluttered, then opened just enough for her to see the reflection of his bright eyes. “Iris?” he croaked, his voice barely even a whisper.

“Yes, Peter,” she replied, nodding frantically. “Y-yes, it’s me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

The engineer blinked slowly and his eyes opened a little more. He stirred, raised a hand to his head and winced as his palm grazed over one of his several burns. He pulled it away and stared at it. “Wha... what happened?”

Iris nearly laughed at his question. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“What?” he mumbled weakly, gazing up at her in confusion. “But... why are you...”

“I heard a noise,” Iris explained. “Loud, like an explosion. I was afraid that something had happened, an accident or something, so I came as fast as I could.”

“You...” His sentence disappeared before it was finished. He trailed his fingertips gently over his face again. “Then... how did I...”

She gently took him by the wrist and pulled his hand away. “You’ve been burned. I don’t know how you got that way, but...” All of a sudden, a thought struck her, along with a shot of fear. “The twins. Peter, are the twins alright?”

“I... I felt them before... they were...” As he was searching for an answer, he stopped, his breath hitching. She glanced toward his belly and saw movement, the small ripple of someone’s foot passing along one side. “Still kicking,” he said.

Having reached catharsis at last, Iris sighed and her face pulled into a smile. She gently ran her fingers through Peter’s hair. “What do you remember?” she asked.

“I don’t know where to start,” he murmured in reply. “I was just working on the first automaton again, trying to finish filling her core, and then...” He frowned, seeming discouraged. “I... I don’t know. That’s where it all seems to end.”

Iris sighed. So it seemed there was no answer. “Well... I’m just glad you’re all alright.”

Peter closed his eyes for a second longer and pressed his cheek against Iris’s hip. He took a long, deep breath, probably to clear his head, before he looked up at her again. “Could you help me up?”

“O-of course,” Iris replied. Holding him gently in her arms, she helped him pull his difficult body into an upright position. He sat next to her on the floor, still seeming unsteady, and she held her hand on his arm to keep him from swaying. He blinked hard, like his vision was blurry, and hissed through his teeth again as the motion pulled at his damaged skin.

“We should probably take care of these burns,” he said matter-of-factly. “God knows how I even got them in the first place.”

Iris agreed, as was her usual habit, and started helping him to his feet. It was a bit of a struggle, Peter being so much larger than herself and heavier as well, and there was no shortage of apologies from him as she tried to use her small self as leverage. In a moment he was standing, albeit leaning on Iris’s shoulder. The maid was about to turn and lead him up the stairs when she finally noticed something odd in the back of the room. “Peter, what is...” she started to ask.

“What in god’s name...” the engineer murmured, completely awestruck. It seemed that he had only just noticed it as well.

Off in the far corner of the room, across from where Kepler’s hutch had been dragged, there was a glaring blue light shimmering up from the floor. What appeared to be a swirling vortex of fluorescent blue had carved a place in the linoleum floor. It was humming like something electric, and the light pulsed every few seconds, slow and steady, like a living thing. Whatever it was, it seemed to be emitting some kind of energy that hovered in the air. Iris hadn’t been able to sense it before, its path blocked by the solid shield of the lab tables. There was a definite acidic tang in the air, a subtle crackle that set Iris’s hair standing on end.

“I do not know how that got there,” Peter said. Then, the second the words were out of his mouth, there was energy in the room wavered. The light surged, and the pulsating whirlpool began to spin faster.

Iris had barely enough time to shout “Get down!” before a shrill blast of sound slashed through the air. She grabbed Peter by the arm and the both of them ducked behind the lab the table. Her eyes squinted shut. The energy in the air surged one last time. There was an electric crackling, a loud noise just slightly less explosive than the one beforehand, and then a high-pitched ring echoed in Iris’s ears that permeated the hollow silence.

Peter, who’d had the reflexes to cover his ears, slowly lowered his hands and peered cautiously over the edge of the table. Iris followed, looked into the corner and gasped. Where the strange blue entity had been only seconds before, there was a raw, eroded spot on the linoleum floor. The dull surface seemed smooth at first, but as Iris stared, she saw there was a faint indentation in the tiles where the vortex had been.

“Great Scott,” Peter mumbled, scratching at the back of his head. “What the hell was all of that?”

“If you don’t know...” Iris started to reply, but trailed off, sure he hadn’t been looking for an answer.

“I must have caused it somehow,” he mused. “I-I can’t be sure exactly what I did, though. All I remember was that I was trying to add more blue matter to the first’s power core, and then...” He stopped, staring straight ahead with his eyes wide. “Blue matter. That has to be it. But the core...”

Before he even said it, Iris knew what he meant. The both of them turned instantly to the automaton lying motionless on the table behind them. She was just as lifeless as ever. Well, most of her was. There was one minor exception.

Her power core, at long last, was completely full. The glass enclosure was glowing brightly, its metal clasp,s by some magic, welded permanently shut. As Iris stared, she thought she saw faint, slender threads of blue winding their way along her wires, twisting around her steel bones and burrowing into her mechanisms. Then, in a split second, light flickered behind the dim glass lenses of her eyes. A shiver ran through the automaton’s body and, all of a sudden, her jaw dropped open and she let out a shrill, mechanized cry. 

Iris seized up and took half a step back, startled. Both she and Peter were frozen in place, staring down at the machine that only seconds before had been dead still. Now she was twitching on the lab table, staring blankly up at the ceiling and blinking under its fluorescent lights. It took a moment for everything to sink in and for Iris to realize what had just happened. 

In the accident, or whatever it had been, her blue matter core had been filled. She was active.

The automaton whimpered again, and that seemed to pull Peter out of his trance. In an instant, he was leaning over the table, looking down at his creation’s slack-jawed and incomplete face. She squinted up at him as his shadow crossed through her vision, and her hands arms jerked upwards in an ungainly effort to shield her eyes. “Bless,” he whispered in disbelief.

Peter reached a tentative hand out towards her while Iris watched, her heart in her throat. The automaton shakily raised her hands to try to swat him away at first, then whined in frustration when she couldn’t. Her creator placed a gentle but firm hand on her wrists and pushed them back down. He cupped her copper forehead in his palm and stroked a thumb over the smooth metal. By some miracle, that seemed to calm her down. Iris couldn’t begin to guess how he’d known. It all seemed to have happened by sheer instinct.

“Iris, I need you to get the bells from Kepler’s cage,” he said, not taking his eyes off his creation for a second.

The maid was still in a state of mild shock and it took a moment for his words to register. “R-right away,” she stammered when she finally recognized what he’d said, then dashed off to the corner where Kepler and her hutch had been stowed. The rabbit was still frightened, and upon seeing Iris, began thumping her feet on the floor of her hutch again. She never stopped, not even after Iris had unlaced the string of little tin bells. It seemed that she wouldn’t let up until she was assured that nothing else scary would happen, so Iris opened the door of the hutch and reached her hand in. Kepler dashed toward it and pressed her nose to the maid’s fingertips, her way of giving permission to be pulled from her enclosure. 

Iris returned to the lab table with the string of bells wrapped around one hand and Kepler snuggled into her elbow. Peter didn’t question it, only took the bells from her and wrapped the string around his own fingers. “Thanks,” he said cordially, and Iris saw the automaton’s metal jaw moving, her mouth twitching soundlessly, as though she were making an attempt to imitate her creator.

Peter held the bells a few inches from the left side of his creation’s head, directly next to her sculpted ear, and gave them a shake. They issued their normal twinkling sound, and instantly, the automaton had snapped her head to the side, her glowing eyes searching for the source of the noise. The corner of Peter’s mouth twitched into half a smile. He shook the bells one more time for the automaton to see, then quickly tested the right side. She responded just the same, turning quickly towards the sound, and this time her eyes followed the bells when her creator moved them away. She whimpered in protest and reached for the bells, trying to pull them from his hand. Peter went ahead and let her have them.

The engineer turned to Iris, positively beaming now. “Everything works,” he said with elation. “She can see, she can hear and it seems her limbs are fully functional.” The automaton’s mouth started to aimlessly move again. He glanced back at her and added, “Strange that she’s able to make noises without any cylinders or commands, though. It looks almost like she’s trying to speak on her own.”

“That’s ambitious of her,” Iris cheerfully replied, still cradling Kepler in one arm and stroking her ears with the other. “If she is, how fast do you think she’ll be able to learn?”

“There’s no harm in finding out.” He rounded the edge of the table to stand behind the automaton’s head, and slid his hands under her shoulders and neck. “Here, help me get her sitting upright.”

Iris shifted Kepler to balance the rabbit on one arm and wedged her free hand beneath the machine’s other shoulder. She was extremely heavy, and it was harder to lift her than Iris had expected, but it didn’t last long. It took only an initial push to spur her mechanisms into action. With a low hum and a whirring of gears, the automaton’s body lifted itself up, fell forward a little as her center of gravity shifted, then straightened up again as she splayed her hands out on the table between her legs, using her arms to push herself back.

“She’s adaptive,” Peter quietly noted. “Unexpected, but likely useful.” He moved so he was face-to-face with his creation. Her glowing eyes met with his, staring with blank wonderment. “Hello,” he nervously began. “Um... you’re awake. That’s good. That’s fantastic. Er... well...  _ My  _ name is Peter.” He spoke slowly and put a hand on his chest, indicating himself. “Peter. I’m... I’m your inventor.”

The automaton’s jaw moved aimlessly, still fruitlessly trying to imitate her creator’s actions. She stared at him, seeming confused at first, then frustrated for not being able to make the same noises. She whined again, and on impulse, Iris put her hand on her wrist. Immediately the automaton had turned to her. She hummed a tone that sounded curious.

“M-my name is Iris,” the maid stammered. She pointed at herself the same way that Peter had. “I-ris,” she enunciated. “Can you say Iris?”

The automaton opened her mouth and made a noise of some kind. It came out gritty and mechanical, not sounding like any kind of word at all. She blinked in surprise at herself and tried again. “Ah... I...” she babbled. “I-I...”

The first half of Iris’s name seemed to be cooperating, but other seemed to be proving too difficult for the automaton’s unskilled mouth. She tried again and again, the odd noise warbling from her synthetic throat, but she still couldn’t seem to make it work. Her slim metal hands tightened into a frustrated fists, and in the process, shook the string of bells that had become tangled in her joints. The soft jingle distracted her, and she looked down and cooed with delight. She raised her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers to make them ring again. Her face twitched into an imitation of a smile.

“Th-those are bells,” Iris said. The automaton turned her eyes back to her, seeming confused all over again. “Bells,” the maid repeated, pointing at the string wrapped around her hand. “Maybe that would be easier.”

“B... b-b-beh...” the automaton tried to echo, but she was quickly cut off by the noise again, and she immediately shut her mouth, as if embarrassed by it.

“I-it’s alright if you can’t. It’s difficult, but you’ll get the hang of it,” Peter gently chimed in. His creation seemed reassured, and he began looking around the room for more objects to point to and ask her to pronounce. Iris did as well, all the while trying to keep Kepler calm and balanced on her arm. Not much progress was made, since every time the automaton opened her mouth, the queer noise would always come out. The problem wasn’t a mechanical one. Iris had watched Peter test the vocal mechanism herself and knew it was in perfect working order. The dilemma must have been that she was trying to use it unprompted and didn’t quite know how. 

They were starting to run out of objects to point at when Peter glanced at Iris and paused. “Could you hand Kepler to me for a moment?” he asked. Iris didn’t see why not and handed the rabbit, who had since calmed down, over the table to her employer. With Kepler in hand, he turned back to his creation. “This is a rabbit,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly. “A rabbit. Can you say that?”

The automaton opened her mouth and started to stutter. “R... r... r-r...” She went on stammering, trying to get past the first syllable. She seemed afraid to go too far, as if the simple attempt at speech would conjure up that awkward noise again. Her metallic face had somehow taken on an expression of frustration.

“Concentrate,” Peter instructed her.

She sputtered, whined for a second, then closed her eyes and started again. Her voice came out sounding grainy and mechanical, but it was a voice all the same.

“R... r-ra... ra-abbit?”

Both Peter and Iris immediately went wide-eyed with shock. “W-what did you just say?” the engineer murmured.

“R-rabbit,” the automaton stuttered again. At the sound of her own voice, her eyes lit up, and in a second her face had formulated a smile again. “Rabbit!” she cheered, bubbling over with excitement. “Rabbit! Rabbit!”

The engineer’s face broke into an elated grin that doubly reflected the one on his creation. “Yes!” he cheered. “Yes, it’s a rabbit! Fantastic! You’re doing so well!” Immediately, he looked around for something else to pick up. He spied a wrench, handed Kepler back to Iris and held the tool in front of the automaton’s face. “This is a wrench. Can you say wrench for me?”

“Rabbit.”

Peter’s smile instantly disappeared. Iris found herself holding back the urge to laugh. “N-no, that’s not a rabbit,” her employer firmly explained. “It’s a wrench. Watch me, then try saying it yourself. Wrench.”

“Rabbit.”

He resignedly set the tool down on the table, then gestured at the automaton’s hand. “Do you remember what those are called?” he asked. Iris watched the machine’s lips silently form the word, but she made no sound. “Bells,” Peter went on. “They’re bells, remember? How about you say that?”

The automaton lifted her hand and shook the tangled string of bells. “R-rabbit!” she said gleefully.

It went on for some time. Peter reverted back to pointing out random objects in the room and asking his creation to pronounce them. Iris watched her all the while, and every time, she saw the automaton’s mouth imitate her creator’s. Obviously she was intelligent enough to understand how words were made. Yet every time she spoke, she only said one thing.

“What’s this?”

“Rabbit.”

“And what’s this?”

“Rabbit.”

“Alright.... What about this?”

“Rabbit.”

“And who am I?”

“Rabbit.”

Peter stared at his creation and sighed. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Seems she already knows what her favorite word is,” Iris said, her voice lilting with giggles that she had long since given up on trying to restrain. 

“It’s fine if she has a favorite, but it would make things a little easier if she’d say a few more.”

“For someone who’s just come to life, she knows herself pretty well. I wouldn’t exactly call that a mistake.”

“Rabbit,” the automaton remarked.

“For god’s sake, would it kill you to say something else?” Peter grumbled.

“Ra-abbit.”

Iris turned to him and shrugged. “There’s your answer, I suppose.”

“Well, if that’s the way she wants to be,” he surrendered. “I don’t see what more I can do about it. I estimate she’ll say something once she’s been given the proper commands.”

Iris nodded in agreement, then looked back at the automaton, who was now happily playing with the bells on her hand. “Or whenever she decides she wants to,” she added. “We’re going to have to tell Johona.”

“I can’t imagine what she’ll make of all of this,” Peter responded. “Seems that strange things just don’t want to stop happening around here.”

* * *

Johona had planned on returning to Peter’s manor and setting straight to work on disguising it as a quarantine unit with the meager supplies that she’d managed to smuggle out of the hospital. She knew that her friend’s work had been going somewhat slowly as of late, and he still had yet to activate any of his creations in their entirety. The last thing she had expected to find him and the maid running in circles on the ground floor of the house, chasing after a freshly activated and insatiably curious automaton that could move at a frustratingly high speed.

Of course, she’d demanded an explanation right away. Peter had given her one, to the best of his ability. The first thing he’d told her was that he wasn’t at all sure how any of it had happened. Most of it, he claimed, was overtaken by a massive blackout. All the rest had happened as expected, save for the machine’s apparent unwillingness to say anything other than “rabbit.” 

“And she’s been tottering around like that for how long, exactly?” 

All three of them were situated in the parlor now, four including the automaton. She’d been given a free run of the area, provided she stayed within their sight. Johona watched as she toddled unsteadily along like a newborn foal on her strong, curvy legs.

“Since we got her to stand up on her own,” Peter replied matter-of-factly. “Which was, relatively... a few hours ago.”

Johona pursed her lips and looked over at the rambunctious machine, who had found her way to the window and was currently entertained by the few remaining leaves that fell from the scrubby trees and scattered in the wind. “What do you plan on doing with her?”

Her friend took a deep breath and hesitantly said, “Erm, actually... I haven’t thought too far ahead-” He was interrupted by a loud clatter as the automaton accidentally pushed a vase of silk flowers off a table. “...in that respect.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve brought a six-foot-tall, possibly intelligent machine to life and you don’t have any semblance of a plan?”

“W-well... she didn’t quite turn out the way I intended her to,” Peter stuttered nervously. “I expected her to operate independently, but I didn’t anticipate her being _this_ independent.”

“Obviously, if it does turn out that she’s intelligent, we’re going to have to start by teaching her,” Iris chimed in suddenly. Johona looked to her, eyebrows raised. “We accomplished a little today. By now, she knows how to stand and walk on her own, and from what we’ve observed, she has at least a basic understanding of words and what they mean. In that endeavor, we’re going to have to move at her pace, since we can’t make her learn any faster than she’s able. It seems that she can pick up new skills fairly quickly, though.”

In the meantime, the automaton had become bored with herself and had ventured towards the circle of humans in the room. She fell unceremoniously into a chair, the silk flowers from the vase now clutched in her bell-tangled hand. “Raaaa-bbit!” she interjected.

Johona glanced sideways at her, then back at her friend. “You’re sure she’s never said anything else?”

“She’s tried, but never succeeded,” he replied. His creation scooted out of her chair towards him and he eyed her warily.

“It’s not that she can’t. I think she just doesn’t want to,” Iris added. 

The automaton inched towards Peter as they spoke and looked up at him with bright, innocent eyes. Johona watched as the machine extended a bell-covered hand and tilted the fake blossoms she held towards her creator’s face. “R-rabbit.”

“What’s this?” he mused, leaning back a little from her reaching arm. “O-oh, flowers. Very nice.” He feigned a smile at the automaton, which she seemed to accept, despite how obviously strained it was.

“Rabbit,” she babbled on, pushing the flowers toward him.

“Huh?” 

“Ra-abbit.”

“Are... these for me?” he asked. The automaton’s only answer was an unwavering stare, so he gently wrapped his fingers around the coated wire stems and took them from her hand. “Th-thank you. I’m, uh... I’m going to have to put these back in the vase you knocked over.” His creation only sat back, smiling, and let out a lilting, musical giggle.

Johona smirked. “Look at that. She’s a sweet thing.”

“Maybe,” her friend responded, “but this still makes things considerably more complicated.”

“I’m going to assume you’re referring to Mr. Khan.”

“Exactly.”

“If Babclock’s told him anything, I’d assume he’d know at least a little about your line of work. I’m sure that a wandering machine won’t be too difficult to explain.”

“That’s only a small part of it. For now, she doesn’t say much, but there’s no telling how long that’ll last. I don’t know how quickly she’ll learn to talk. And if she  _ talks _ -”

“You know, if the plan succeeds as expected, Mr. Khan won’t be venturing too far into the house.”

“But if he does?”

“She can’t tell him about what she doesn’t understand,” Johona declared, a sly smirk at the corner of her lips.

Peter still didn’t seem convinced. “You’re suggesting we tell her nothing and expect that she won’t gather what’s going on from situational evidence?”

“That’s precisely what I’m suggesting. It’s a psychological phenomenon that exists in nearly every species on Earth. It’s impossible for babies to understand what is never taught by those that surround them. Like children who have lived in the wild and act like wolves. If we never directly tell her that you’re pregnant-”

“Don’t just go saying it like that. What if she repeats it?”

“Rabbit.”

Johona laughed under her breath. “I don’t think it’ll be too much of a concern for now.”

The tension in the room to ease a little after that. Johona still had her bag of embezzled hospital supplies that needed to be put into place. It became Peter’s new job to keep his creation away from the new interior decorating and ensure that nothing was ruined before it was properly set up. The next few hours went to fetching a ladder and tools from the cellar, stretching lengths of gauze sheet across the tall windows in the foyer and fastening them into place. Johona figured that whatever damage they caused would be small and temporary, and her friend did nothing to stop her. That might have been because he was currently indisposed with entertaining his spirited creation and keeping her from destroying the house. 

It had gotten dark by the time that they were finished. It had been decided earlier that Peter was supposed to cook dinner that night, but the way the day had panned out, he hadn’t gotten the chance to start. That landed all three residents of the house in the kitchen in a collaborative effort to make the work go faster, with Kepler on the floor, scampering around their legs, and the automaton toddling after her and mumbling “rabbit” over and over.

Johona studied the lively machine while she cut an array of vegetables at the counter. “She really enjoys saying that word,” she mentioned, glancing sideways at Peter.

“Maybe she does, but it’s starting to concern me,” he responded as he stoked the embers of the wood-burning stove. “It’s been hours, and she’s been listening to us talk all this time but hasn’t said another word.”

“I told you before, she could probably say other words if she wanted to,” Iris chimed in while seasoning slices of chicken. “When she was watching us talk, her mouth was making the same motions.”

“But it doesn’t make sense. She won’t even make an attempt to say something else.” He took the tray of chicken from Iris and slid it into the oven. “Something might have gone wrong when I was building the pieces that were meant to receive and interpret commands from music cylinders.”

“But how are you going to repair it?” Johona cut in. “She’s already awake. Did you make her with an off switch of any kind?”

“In the original design, I did. But that’s the issue. I never turned her on.”

She turned to her friend, one eyebrow incredulously raised. “You never turned her on?”

“Never,” Peter replied. “I checked her over after she was activated and the switch was still in its powered-down position. I tried to move it, to see if maybe I’d wired it to have an opposite effect, but it was stuck. It was like I’d soldered it in place.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

“ _ I don’t know _ , Johona. Maybe you should have asked me while I was blacked out.”

With a shrug, Johona returned to observing the curious automaton, who had now taken to sprawling on the floor and crawling after Kepler, who remained consistently just out of her reach. Her sharp metal joints were scratching up the tile floor, which Peter surprisingly didn’t seem to mind very much. The whole spectacle itself was amusing to watch, and it brought up a number of contemplations in Johona’s mind. Her friend’s creation seemed to be on a relatively good track, for having been awake for only a few hours. She had learned to walk quickly, which was somewhat reassuring. Johona was sure that more technical knowledge would come to her in the following days. The automaton would have her friend and Iris to pay attention to her at just about any time she needed it. During the day they would, anyway. Johona realized that there were quite a few immediately pressing issues that still had yet to be resolved.

“Here’s a question,” she said. “If you have no means of shutting her down, then how are you going to sleep tonight?”

Her friend looked at her for a second, seeming baffled, before grim realization settled into his expression. “Oh,” he mumbled. He sighed in frustration and put a hand to his patched-up forehead. “For Christ’s sake, why didn’t I think of  _ that _ ?”

On the floor, the automaton reached out towards Kepler and tickled her fingertips over the rabbit’s silky back. The rabbit held still for a second before scooting away from her pursuer again. This time, the machine didn’t chase her. She sat up and swiveled her head to look at Peter. “R-raa- bbit.”

“You know, if she likes that word so much,” Johona said, “you might as well make it her name.”

“You want me to name her after an animal?” Peter rhetorically asked.

“Not exactly.”

“I’m not naming her Rabbit.”

“Well, she could always be named after you.”

“This is why I never trust you to name things, Johona.”

The automaton herself scooted across the floor towards where her creator stood. She tilted her head back to stare up at him like a curious child. “R-r-r-raaa-bbit,” she warbled. Peter looked down at her, a concerned line etching itself between his eyebrows.

“I don’t know,” Iris said equivocally. “I think Johona has a point. If she likes the word so much...”

Peter turned to her, eyes wide. “Are you seriously siding with her?”

Iris shrugged. “W-well, if you want to choose her name yourself-”

“R-r-rabbit,” the automaton interrupted.

The room turned to look at her. She still knelt on the floor, her head cocked to gaze up at Peter. He sighed and, with some effort, stooped down to meet her gaze. “What do you think?” he asked. “Would you like that? To be named Rabbit?”

She stared at him for a second before her face twitched into the imitation of a smile. “R-rabbit,” she murmured.

“That seems like a yes, if I’ve ever seen one,” Johona said.

Peter glared sharply at her before he sighed in resignation and turned back to his creation. “Then... I guess we’ll call you Rabbit.” The automaton stared at him for a second, as if she didn’t understand what he said. To emphasize his point, he poked a finger at her chest. “That’s you. You’re Rabbit.”

“R-ra...bbit?” she questioned, flicking her bell-covered hand toward herself.

“Yes, you’re Rabbit,” Peter repeated.

Immediately, the automaton seemed overcome with joy. “Rabbit! Rabb-it! R-r-abbit!” she babbled excitedly. “R-rabbit... yes.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. “Y-yes?” he mumbled in disbelief.

“Yes!” Rabbit echoed.

Iris beamed at the both of them. “Glory be, she’s starting to speak.”

“R-rabbit... Peter. Peter... yes.”

“I am... yes?” her creator asked, still wide-eyed in amazement.

“I think that means she likes you,” Johona supplied, the corner of her mouth curving into a smirk.

“Y-yes,” the automaton trilled. “R-R-Rabbit... likes Peter.”

Her friend stared at the machine for a moment longer, struck speechless, before his face pulled into a misty-eyed smile. He placed a hand over his heart and sighed in elation. “Oh... Rabbit, that’s...” he said, breathless. Johona feared her teeth would start decaying if the scene became any sweeter.

“Listen, this is all very precious,” she interrupted, “but we really should figure out how we’re going to sleep tonight.”

“R-right,” Peter responded, shaking himself our of his reverie. “I could try disconnecting her wires from her core. If her construction is still the way I remember building it, her memories and functions are probably stored elsewhere, so there’s a chance that removing her power source wouldn’t interfere with the rest of that.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Iris shyly inquired.

“It’s the first one I thought of, but we probably should have more options than this.” He turned to her. “Do you have any ideas?”

“N-not exactly,” the maid admitted. “I mean... I was only considering that it’s Rabbit’s first day awake. Shouldn’t we be... I don’t know. Forming a bond of some kind?”

Johona raised her eyebrows at the sound of that, although Iris had her attention fixed wholly on her employer. If she wasn’t mistaken, Iris seemed dead-set on practicing her mothering skills already, and Peter’s creation appeared to be the first unsuspecting subject who would be her surrogate child. 

“Come to think of it, we probably should,” Peter replied. He seemed to rarely, if ever, disagree with Iris. “In other forms of life, the early stages of development are the most crucial. And the way Rabbit is, her progress would be accelerated. Especially fast, if the wiring in her brain isn’t faulty.”

“R-r-r-rabbit... le-earn.”

“That’s right,” Johona said, responding to both of them at once. “How does sleeping in shifts sound?”

“Workable,” Peter affirmed. “Each of us will get one-third of the night, starting at... ten, probably. One keeps an eye on Rabbit while the other two sleep, and every... let’s say three hours, we exchange.”

“I’ll take the last shift, since I have to leave early in the mornings. Peter, you stay up late anyway, so you might want to take the first shift. Iris, are you alright being up in the middle of the night?”

“It’s perfectly fine.”

“Then that’ll be our strategy,” Johona declared. “We’ll finish sorting the rest of this endeavor out after dinner. If we’re lucky, we might even get Rabbit to talk a little more.”

“Ra-abbit... t-t-t-talk?” the automaton asked.

Johona grinned brightly at her. “Exactly, my dear.”

* * *

The clock had already chimed half-past midnight, and time was crawling slowly onward. It had taken some time to sink in that Peter hadn’t stayed up so late in quite a while. 

Periodic insomnia had once been something in which Peter had a weird sort of pride. He knew it was unhealthy, but not long ago he used to think of it as a sign of dedication; it was symbolic of his willingness to sacrifice one cruel human necessity in order to pursue one’s passions. He’d fallen into the trap far more than once before, much to the dismay of Johona and a few other biologist friends of his. It had become twice as severe after Delilah’s death. But since the twins had started sapping his energy, he’d been forced to at least make the effort. And ever since Iris...

He definitely wasn’t as flexible as he once was, he decided. Maybe he would be, after his body was no longer being used as a terrarium, but for the time being, he’d become more a creature of habit than he had ever been in his life, a large part of that being his sleep schedule.

Rabbit didn’t seem to take much notice of her creator’s waning energy. She wandered around the first floor of the manor, tottering along on her sturdy legs, picking up objects and asking a seemingly endless stream of questions. He answered them all to the best of his ability, and with every word he spoke, Rabbit picked up a few bits and pieces more. In a matter of hours, she’d managed to form a small vocabulary. She still stuttered and stalled when it came to pronunciation, but the concept was definitely there. Not a bad result at all, for a first draft.

By the time the clock struck, they had made their way to the library, and Rabbit had taken to pulling random things from the shelves. Peter had followed her around at first, keeping after her and ensuring that nothing she fiddled with was  _ too _ important, but he couldn’t keep up with her for long. He had sunken down on one of the fainting couches in the room and taken to watching her from there, shouting a quick warning at her whenever she came close to breaking something or making a mess. She seemed to become more cautious each time he did, slowly learning what she was allowed to touch and what was, for now, off-limits. As she explored, Peter’s eyelids began to feel heavy and his vision faded in and out of focus. For a brief moment, the world faded into darkness. In the distance, he heard the hiss of steam and clicking gears. 

“P-P-Peter?” a metallic voice said.

The engineer startled and lifted his head. He hadn’t realized he’d nodded off. Rabbit was crouched directly in front of him, her face inches away, her glowing blue eyes staring inquisitively into his. He backed a little ways away from her and she seemed to take the hint, scooting back to sit on her heels. “Hello there, Rabbit,” he murmured drowsily. “I’m terribly sorry about that.”

“Peter... s-stopped,” Rabbit informed him, her facial mechanisms pinched into a look of concern.

“I... what?” He thought for a second, then it dawned on him. “Oh. That. You don’t have to worry about that. I just fell asleep for a bit, that’s all.”

“Asleep?”

“Yes. See, Rabbit,” he explained, “I’m a human. A living thing. Like I told you, remember?”

She nodded. “Peter is human-an-an-an.”

“You run on your core, which gives you limitless energy. Humans don’t have those. Sometimes, we run out of energy. And when we do, we sleep.”

“St-st-stopping is... sleep?”

“Something like that. And after a while, we stop sleeping, and we can keep working. Understand?”

Rabbit was still for a minute, looking pensively at the floor while she processed the new information. Eventually, she nodded. “S-sleep,” she lilted. A second later, she added, “R-Rabbit would like to s-s-sl-leep.”

“You would?” Peter asked, and his creation nodded enthusiastically in response. “I don’t know if you can. You could try, maybe, but I don’t know if you’d be able to actually sleep.”

“Oh.” Rabbit looked disappointedly down at the floor and let out a little “humph” of indignance. She played with the inextricable tangle of bells on her hand before looking back up at Peter. “If Peter showed Rabbit how to sleep, could Rabbit learn?”

The engineer shrugged. “I could try, but I don’t think it works like that,” he replied. “You might want to use the words  _ I _ or  _ me _ when you’re talking about yourself, though.”

“But... Rabbit,” she said, pointing at herself.

“I know you’re Rabbit, but you can only use your name so much before it starts to sound odd. After saying it once or twice, you can start using other words. I think you’ve been paying attention enough to  _ me _ while  _ I _ speak,” he explained, gesturing with his hands at either himself or his automaton. “I’d like to see  _ you _ try to talk like  _ me _ . Right now,  _ you _ keep speaking in third person.”

Peter couldn’t help but laugh at that. By then Rabbit had learned what the sound meant, and her facial mechanisms twitched, bringing an offended look to her face. Her childish anger was almost cute and he had to fight the urge to laugh even harder. “I-It’s a grammatical term, Rabbit,” he said. “They’re used for different ways of referring to people. Using  _ I _ when talking about yourself,  _ you _ when talking to someone else, things like that.” That seemed to clear up Rabbit’s confusion, and for a short while she seemed content. But Peter couldn’t seem to stop himself from adding, “Besides, technically, there are four people in the room.”

“Four?” Rabbit cried out in shock. “W-w-where? Are they hiding?” Her jaw dropped open and she scrambled to her feet to scamper around the room, looking under furniture and behind bookcases. Peter started laughing all over again as the antics ensued. He felt one of the twins kick at him, and that finally convinced him to stop.

“I’m joking, Rabbit! There’s no one else in here!” he called out to her. Rabbit crawled out from under a coffee table and whirled around to face him. “I was joking,” he repeated, restraining the wicked grin on his face. “You don’t quite need to know what that means yet, but... I wasn’t serious. There’s no one else in the room.”

The automaton’s face pulled into an imitation of a pout and she slunk back over to him. “It-it-it’s sad there aren’t more people,” she grumbled. “I wo-would’ve liked to m-m-m-meet them.”

“Don’t fret, Rabbit,” he reassured her. “I’m sure you will, eventually.”

He set her loose to wander the library again, a touch more cautious and more knowledgeable than before. It took barely a minute for him to start drifting again. Rabbit must have noticed, because in an instant she was at his side again, leaned in far too close and watching him with her fluorescent eyes. “Are you g-g-gonna sleep, Peter?” she asked.

“I’m trying not to.”

“Why not? D-do-do-don’t you have to?”

“I do, and I will, but I can’t right now. I have to make sure you stay safe.”  _ And the rest of the house _ , he thought to himself, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “B-b-b-but you’re gonna have to?”

“Soon, yes. I don’t have a core to keep me awake, remember?”

“B-but if you don’t have a c-c-c-co-core...” she began. Without warning, she leaned towards him and poked at his stomach. “Then w-w-why do you glow like I do?”

“U-um...” Peter indecisively stuttered. He inched back and gently pushed Rabbit’s hand away. “I, er... I have no idea, actually.” Rabbit stared at him, and she seemed about to ask him something more, when another voice beat hers to the engineer’s ears.

“Peter?” Iris was calling to them from the highway. “Where have you two gotten to?”

“In the library,” he replied to her.

“Books!” Rabbit cried out as loud as she could, earning herself an exasperated glare from her creator. 

Iris appeared in the doorway a moment later, wearing her shift and dressing gown, her hair pulled neatly back in a pair of French braids. Rabbit stood up in a flash and toddled over to her, her facial mechanisms pulling into an excited smile. “Peter needs to sleep,” she informed the maid.

“Yes, indeed he does,” she responded. She glanced past the automaton and met Peter’s eyes on the other side of the room. Her lips curved into a knowing smile. 

“You’re here a little early,” he remarked as she made Iris crossed the room to meet him. “I was waiting for the clock to chime again.”

“I suppose I just couldn’t wait. Besides, with what you’ve been through today, I’m sure you’re worn out. A few minutes less of sleep don’t make any difference to me.”

A gentle, fuzzy warmth stoked in Peter’s chest. “You’re too sweet, Iris.”

The comment didn’t stop the maid from leaning toward him and offering her hand to help him up. With a preparatory sigh, Peter fixed his one hand on the arm of the fainting couch and let Iris take the other. Together they pulled his heavy, ungainly body to its feet. 

“How are things going?” she asked in a slightly hushed tone.

“Very well, actually,” he said just as softly. “She’s picked up speech rather quickly, though grammar’s still a work in progress. She’s inquisitive, too. But I’m sure that’s something you’ll be able to handle.”

“You put so much faith in me,” Iris remarked, letting slip a small giggle.

“And who else am I supposed to put that faith in?”

Iris’s cheeks blushed, and she looked down from his face to turn her gaze to his belly. She gave it a quick, gentle caress. “You really should go on and get some rest.”

“Of course.” Peter glanced back at Rabbit, who had been intriguedly watching the exchange. “Be good for Iris while I’m gone.”

“Yes, Peter,” the automaton cheerily replied.

“Well, she’s given you her word.” He turned back to the maid. “Goodnight, Iris.”

“Goodnight,” she cordially responded.

With that, they parted ways, and he started towards the staircase. He’d barely made it halfway up before he started to feel a familiar heat boiling over in his core.

_ Oh, god _ , he dismally thought.  _ Right now? After everything that’s happened today,  _ this _? _

He tried to move as fast as he could, but not even the best of his efforts were any sort of help. He was too tired, his form too awkward, the weight in his stomach too much to carry. He stumbled as a cramp shot through his legs, and his hands clawed blindly for the banister and he just barely caught himself, slamming his shin into the corner of the next stair. Swearing through his teeth, he limped the rest of the way up, fighting against the pain that had already started to surge through his body. The upstairs hallway was as far as he could get before his legs gave out and he collapsed.

Peter slumped back against the wall, gritted his teeth and waited. He was panting already from his desperate attempt to make it to his room. The excruciating burn was well underway, his belly heating up like mixed plaster until he could no longer bear to keep his hands fisted tightly around the hem of his shirt to steel himself against the pain. The twins were moving again, so much that he could practically see them writhing under his skin. He silently apologized to them, assuring them that he was sorry that this was the way things were, wishing that they didn’t have to put up with this twice in a single day. 

After a handful of white-hot, nail-biting minutes, the pain finally started to dissipate. Peter struggled to his feet, still reeling from the episode, and staggered the rest of the way to his room. Panting for breath, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. The glow from his stomach was just enough to let him find his bed and keel over onto it.  _ If only it would stay steady _ , he thought to himself.  _ If it would stop pulsing like that... _

_ Wait a moment. _

Lying flat on his side, Peter finally had a chance to think. He pushed himself upright again, leaned back on his arms and looked down. His gaze met the vivid blue protrusion that was his belly. The pulses were starting to slow by the time he’d gotten a chance to observe them, but there was still some remainder of the phenomenon for him to watch. Minutes passed, and the pulsing got gradually slower, fading gently back and forth from bright to dull, then back to bright. Finally, it stopped. Peter stared at it, trying to take notes in his head. Where in the interval did it finally fall? Was it the same as before the episode had started?

His mind went back to what rabbit had said to him in the library. It had made him nervous then, but now, staring at his gradually stabilizing body, her words seemed even more unnerving.

_ But if you don’t have a core, then why do you glow like I do? _

That day in the lab, before he’d blacked out, something had happened. The blue matter had been acting strangely. It had been clinging to his hand like it never had before. And there was something else... Yes, it was coming back now. The mysterious substance had spontaneously started to heat up. In that moment he’d thought of something. It was exactly like what he felt during the episodes. And that was only a matter of seconds before the matter had phased through his glove and into his veins.

Peter’s train of thoughts came to a screeching halt. That couldn’t be what it meant. These episodes had some logical reason behind them, that he knew to be a fact, but if what happened to his body during them was anything like what had happened in the lab, then that meant...

The twins were still squirming, and Peter pressed his palms flat against his stomach to calm them. Suddenly every desire for sleep was gone from his mind. The similarities were too uncanny for him to brush aside. What relation did they have to everything else that had been happening to him? All this time, he’d been watching his body change, taking mental notes to record his observations. After each episode, the light inside him became brighter. Heat could signify a chemical reaction. He had to have felt the change that had been taking place somehow. Thinking of it now, it seemed so hard to miss; a small accumulation of blue matter, somewhere deep inside him, and over time growing larger. It had to make space for itself somehow. And as much as he didn’t want to think about it, it would have to...  _ emerge _ somehow, at some point.

Tentatively, Peter lifted the hem of his shirt, leaving his glowing skin exposed. He could see it now, in the near-total darkness. His skin looked almost translucent like this. There were small two accumulations of light inside of him, just barely distinguishable from one another, stirring just below the surface. The twins, he intrinsically knew. They were so close to the surface that he could almost make them out.

Peter’s heart was throbbing rapidly, caught up in the adrenaline high of his discovery. Terrified, he wrapped his arms around himself as if to keep his distorted body in one piece. By now, he suspected he would need to. The twins stirred, driving the blade of dread an inch deeper into his heart. For the first time in months, his mind reverted back to a state of bewildered shock.

_ What in god’s name is happening to me? _

* * *

 

Johona smuggled hospital equipment home for six days. She and Iris were doing a fairly efficient job of transforming the lower floor of the house into a quarantine ward. Wide sheets of gauze were stretched over the windows. A stockpile of gloves and fabric face masks were stowed away in the kitchen. They had made a habit of keeping rags stuffed under the cracks of doors, even those to the pantry and sub-basement. No harm in keeping track of everything, she said. 

Peter occasionally complained about not being able to help, but Johona assured him that he was doing his part in his own way. Rabbit was getting livelier with each passing day, and the more she learned, the more curious and rambunctious she got. Her friend barely had any time to work in his lab with added responsibility of following his creation around all day to ensure she didn’t tear up their home’s disguise. In her first week awake, she’d already managed to break two plates, three glasses, a mirror and a coffee table in the parlor that she tripped over while chasing Kepler around. Iris did as much as she could to relieve him, of course, but despite her best efforts, it seemed that Rabbit had become inseparably attached to her creator. Being as troublesome a machine as she was, Johona felt justified enough in believing that Peter wanted to trade responsibilities with her or Iris just to get a break from his own exhausting creation.

But, all in all, things were going fairly well. They were making pretty fair time in setting up the falsified safety measures around the house. Iris was eager to participate in the ruse; Johona had heard her practicing coughing in private, and she’d seen her put on a sickened, miserable face while she worked only to brighten back up as soon as someone approached her. She’d found the maid to be a very convincing actress.

According to Babclock’s last letter, the emissary was due to arrive sometime the following week. That seemed to be ample time for their facade to be perfected.

Life was as routine as ever that evening in the hours just before the sun lowered past the horizon. Iris was off somewhere in the recesses of the manor, humoring Rabbit while she finished her chores for the day. With her help, Peter had finally caught a free moment to return to the lab and resume his work on the remaining two automatons. In the waning daylight, Johona was pacing around the house and taking stock of everything that she had missed. Maybe she should hang some drop cloths over the doorways in the house as well, to make it look like a little more effort had been put into keeping pathogens from traveling between rooms. She hadn’t had the chance to cover the windows of the upstairs level yet. Everyone hoped that Mr. Khan wouldn’t get that far, but it was always best not to take too many chances. 

Right as that thought was passing through her mind, there was a knock at the door.

Johona stopped dead in the midst of her machinations and whirled around to face the doorway. She happened to be in the parlor at the time, only a short corridor’s walk away from the foyer. She was definitely the closest to the front door out of everyone in the house. In fact, she might have been the only one who had heard the sound at all. Yet she had no chance to think any further on it before another terse knock rang out from the entryway.

For a brief moment, Johona panicked. She didn’t remember either Peter or Iris telling her about any visitors that day. In fact, she didn’t see a reason for them to be having visitors at all with the state their lives were in. There was another knock, a little more insistent than the last. Without thinking, Johona shouted out, “Just a moment!”

She had no plan. The preparations weren’t finished yet. She figured that no matter who showed up at the house, it would be in all of their best interests to keep their facade continuous. Continuity was believability, and believability was their best friend. The scenery might not have been set up for the production, Johona thought quickly to herself, but if she was in costume, that might just do the trick.

Another knock came, even louder. “I said a moment!” Johona shouted in response, dashing across the foyer to reach the kitchen. She had to get to the gloves and face masks. They would be her saving grace. But when the visitor knocked again, this time barely even sparing a second between, she stopped. Any further delay would only raise suspicion. Besides, the stranger might see her silhouette passing in front of the windows. For the moment, it might have actually been safer to go onstage without the costume.

_ Whoever it is _ , she stated firmly in her mind,  _ they won’t be here long. I just have to shoo them away, and it’ll be over and done with.  _ She turned on her heel and took a breath as the visitor once again pummeled their fist against the door.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Johona grumbled as she strode toward the front door. With a rough hand, she twisted the knob and pulled it abruptly open. “Who in the name of god is it, and what is so important that-”

As soon as her eyes settled on the stranger before her, the rest of her words died on her tongue.

There was a man standing before her, barely any taller than herself, wrapped up in a woolen coat and with a scarf wound securely about his neck. His hands were buried in his pockets, his cheeks stung red and his arms hugged closely to his sides as if the cool November air felt bitingly cold to him. His skin was a rich medium brown- an Indian complexion, probably- and a hastily arranged bird’s nest of jet-black hair sat atop his head. His deep brown eyes stared imploringly at Johona, and he seemed to shiver from nerves as well as the perceived cold.

“Pardon my intrusion,” he said cordially, his voice rich with a defined British accent, “but is the house of a Mr. Peter Walter?”

After stalling for a brief period, the gears in Johona’s head finally aligned and clicked together. “It might be,” she brusquely replied, perching a hand on her hip. “It depends on who’s asking.”

“I-I don’t mean to intrude or anything,” the man nervously went on. “I only want to know that I haven’t come to the wrong address. You might be able to tell I’m, er... not exactly from around here.” He dug around in his coat pocket for a moment, then retrieved a neatly folded and slightly crumpled slip of paper. He extended a gloved hand and held it out to Johona. “This is the address that my employer told me to go to. It took a good deal of searching, but I think I’ve found it. It’s the address of this place, correct?”

Without a word, Johona snatched the paper from the stranger’s hands and unfolded it. Indeed it was the manor’s address, marked out in black ink, scrawled in the same blocky, businesslike hand that she’d seen before in every last one of Babclock’s letters.

Johona stared at the script in front of her, then up at the stranger before her. She felt icy dread slowly crystallizing in the chambers of her heart. Her mind reeled.  _ No, it can’t be _ , she thought to herself. But it could. It always could, and that being the case, she couldn’t let this visitor see her flustered. Swallowing her panic, she huffed a nonchalant sigh, folded the paper again and handed it back to him. “You never did bother with telling me who you are,” she quipped. “Or what you’re doing in San Diego.”

The man’s face softened with a relieved smile, although she didn’t see what he had to be smiling about. Maybe he thought he’d won this battle of wits. “My name is Arthur Kahn,” he said. “I’ve come overseas from Northern Africa. See, I’m an employee of the Dandy Candy Corporation under Taggart Babclock. I’m a secretary to him, of sorts. To put it shortly, I’ve been sent to talk to an old friend of his; Peter Walter, the fellow I mentioned earlier-”

“Well, you’ll find no Peter Walter here.”

Arthur Kahn froze. He stared wide-eyed in surprise at Johona. “But... I-I thought you said-”

“I said it might be. I never said it was.”

“Th-then... where else is this address supposed to take me?” He quickly unfolded the paper again and shoved it at her face. “Where else could it be? If you haven’t noticed, this particular area isn’t all that densely populated.”

“It must be a wrong address, then. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“It can’t be the wrong address. I watched my employer copy it directly from the old letters that he was sent from this very house!”

_ Alright, this will be a difficult bullet to dodge.  _ “You’re aware that Mr. Walter uses a postal box now, aren’t you?”

“Since when?” Arthur retorted.

“Since around a year and a half-”

“The letter was older than that. I have his postal box number, too, if you want to see it. The people at the office told me that  _ this _ was the address connected to that box.”

“W-well...” Johona sputtered. She was losing ground, and fast. “Th-there must be some mistake...”

“There  _ can’t  _ be a mistake. I spent days tracking this address down. Mr. Babclock and I have taken every precaution to ensure that such a trivial mistake would be avoided. Do you understand?” The nurse opened her mouth to respond, but Arthur only went on and talked over her. “I’m fully aware of the situation between Mr. Walter and my employer. Did you think that I wouldn’t be expecting to walk into a setback like this?”

“I... I already told you, this-”

“He gave me a description of the house,” Arthur interrupted yet again. “A manor-like place, probably built more than half a century ago. Impressive size, but mediocre upkeep at best. And...” He paused to point out the gauze-covered windows. “That there would be precautions taken to prevent the spread of Mr. Walter’s mysterious illness.” Each cutting remark made Johona internally cringe. So their ruse had turned against them in the end. It was only then that he took notice of her lack of a costume. “Speaking of which, why aren’t you properly dressed for the occasion?”

“I-I only just returned from an errand,” she replied, thinking fast. “I haven’t had time to change yet. Besides, I’ve been out all day. I haven’t seen a trace of Mr. Walter since this morning.”

“Hm.” Arthur nodded, his eyes narrowing incredulously. “Very well, then. I’ll make my request again. I need you to let me in so I may speak with Peter Walter. I’m afraid it’s over an extremely pressing matter and none of us can afford to wait.”

“What’s to stop me from refusing you?” Johona shot back, standing firm in the doorway with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Not to mention, for someone so apparently well aware of the situation in this house, why haven’t you dressed properly, either? That getup won’t do any good keeping you from being exposed.”

At that, Arthur seemed offended. “But... I came with gloves, and a scarf to cover my face and everything-”

“Which you’ll need to wash later, thus exposing you to the pathogen again.”

The man balked for a second, then sighed in defeat. “Then I trust that you wouldn’t mind lending me the right equipment?”

“What incentive do I have to give you any?” Johona snapped. “Mr. Walter isn’t taking any visitors at the moment. That’s my final answer, and it’s the only one that you’ll be getting.”

“Fine.” Arthur straightened up from his nervous slump and straightened the lapels of his coat over his shoulders. “Then I’ll be back tomorrow to see if he’s changed his mind.”

Johona frowned, taking care to let a little worry seep into her expression. “I’m afraid it’s not up to him,” she said. “He’s been down with this illness for several months. It won’t have cleared up in a single day, and until he’s in a more stable condition-”

“We’ll take precautions to prevent the spread of it,” Arthur finished for her. 

Johona’s eyebrows rose in surprise. The audacity of this man was surprising. No wonder Babclock had hired him. “Kahn, I don’t think that you realize exactly how bad this illness is. If you wind up contracting it and bring it back to Africa-”

“I won’t,” Arthur declared with stupefying confidence. “Tell your employer I’ll be coming by again tomorrow afternoon. And if he refuses me again, tell him I’ll be back the next day. And the next day. And every day after that until he permits me to speak with him.” With that, he turned briskly around and strode off, leaving the manor behind with quickening steps.

Johona’s mouth fell open, and suddenly she was overcome with the urge to shout “He isn’t my employer!” at Arthur Kahn’s retreating back. So she did. It didn’t affect him in the least. He didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder as he walked away. Her jaw clenched with pent-up anger, Johona stepped back inside and slammed the door shut behind her.

This was bad. He wasn’t supposed to come this early. The house wasn’t prepared yet, they hadn’t rehearsed their parts, and there was so much more that still wasn’t ready. Things had fallen apart before her yet again. How come whenever things seemed to be going well, something had to promptly come along and ruin them?

She would need to talk to Peter and Iris about this. It seemed that their elaborate production would have to take the stage a few days sooner than expected.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That awkward feeling you get when you realize that while reading and editing your story, you're so deliriously tired that you scroll right past the chapter divide and it doesn't occur to you that you made a mistake until you've already gone halfway through the next chapter, so you're just like "fuck it" and post them both at once.  
> That's what just happened here. So if the chapter seems a bit long this week, chances are that's the reason.  
> Anyway i'm literally too tired to read the letters on my keyboard, so goodbye.  
> See you next chapter.


	20. Fair Warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the title of this chapter could also apply to the tags that I used in this fanfiction's description.  
> It isn't far from the truth. Whoever is still reading this garbage at this point, you WERE warned. That's probably why I only have maybe 20 people or so who actually keep up with me and what I post. Speaking of people who are allegedly keeping up with me, where are you, cicada_s? I miss you, dude. Come back and tell me how good I am.  
> I realize that I didn't put the tumblr plugs in my last two updates. It doesn't really matter, since none of you are even using them anyway. Whichever ones of you actually read these stupid author notes, you're probably sick of hearing me talk about them. I guess it's high time to stop bothering. Well, it'll make my notes a lot shorter. You know, the ones that no one reads.  
> Why do I always do this obscenely late at night when the self-inflicted sad feelings start to set in? i don't know. Maybe because I feel that stuff like this doesn't belong in any other time of day. Now I'm just sitting here with my David Wirsig, about to make another meaningless contribution.  
> Why am I still talking? If you're here at all, you're here for a story, not to listen to me ramble. So let's get to that.  
> Oh, right. CONTENT WARNINGS. Today's are oil vomit, awkward situations, childish ignorance and minor conspiracy.  
> Have fun, kiddos.

 

The core was finished. Miraculously, Peter had managed to fill it completely in a single attempt.

The glass enclosure sat warm and dormant in his hands, its steel edges welded neatly shut. The edges were far cleaner this time than they had been with his first creation, probably because he’d been awake to finish them instead of sealing the core in the midst of an irradiated blackout. All that was left to do was to install it in the spinal column of the second automaton.

It was delicate work. He had to hold the soldering iron precariously, so the very tip just grazed the surface of the core while he fused the connective wires into place. Using the smallest wrench he owned, he gently began the tedious work of spinning the flow adapters into place. For a moment, he felt his head spinning and the world around him going grey. He shook it off, though, determined not to let himself black out again. The twins squirmed. He ignored them and took deep, measured breaths, trying to keep his vision clear. It wavered still. He was almost finished. Only a few more adjustments to make. Any second now, he thought to himself, his creation would awaken to his face.

Peter woke up slumped over on the table, his forehead resting on the slab next to the automaton’s open chest. In a second, he was sitting bolt upright, blinking to refocus his bleary eyes. He rubbed at his temples and cursed under his breath. He didn’t remember falling asleep. Had it happened again? For the love of god, how had it happened again?

Then he heard the noise. It was directly in front of him, soft and subtle, but undeniably present. The low hum of an upstarting engine, the sound of gears clicking to life. The automaton’s limbs were twitching. There was a hiss of steam, and the automaton’s eyes flickered open. His silver jaw dropped open he gasped, a pale cloud of vapor rising from his mouth.

“Mother of...” Peter murmured. He quickly got to his feet and dashed towards where the automaton’s head rested. His glowing green eyes were wide, startled and darting frantically around, searching for something to focus on. A moment later, they fixed on his creator’s face. He stared, and for a second, Peter was speechless. “Hello,” he said breathlessly once he’d gathered his senses again. “It seems you’re awake.”

The automaton’s mouth quivered, and Peter heard his vocal mechanisms buzzing in his chest. He seemed to be trying to repeat his inventor’s words back to him, but upon the apparent realization that his chassis wouldn’t cooperate, he went still and gazed silently upward.

“It’s alright,” Peter told him. “You need time to practice.” The automaton stared and didn’t respond. His creator sighed. Seeing him try to speak, at least he knew that he wasn’t deaf. He didn’t have the string of bells to test the auditory receptors anymore. He had Rabbit to thank for that one. “My name is Peter,” he went on, gesturing at himself. “Peter. Can you say that?”

The automaton’s jaw shivered again, and his speech mechanisms vibrated briefly before giving up. He tried again, one last time, and coughed up another rush of steam. He wheezed and looked away from Peter, his expression pulling into one that resembled disappointment.

“I told you, you’ll need time,” the engineer said again. He ran a hand gently over the automaton’s smooth silver forehead, which seemed to soothe him somewhat, enough to turn his eyes back to his creator. “Here, I’ll try and sit you up. That way you can see more.” The automaton seemed confused, and Peter let himself laugh a little at his own forgetfulness. “To see is... um... It’s what you do with these. Your eyes.” He tried to point them out on the automaton’s face, and but his creation was startled and pulled his head away. “Sorry. Let me think... These,” he clarified, pointing at his own face. “I have eyes, too. I see you...” He drew an imaginary line from his own eyes to those of his invention, then another going back. “And you see me.”

The automaton carefully watched his every move, and he could tell he was listening, the mechanisms in his head and spine whirring to keep up. Peter nodded in his own confirmation, his creation imitated him, and then he went about helping the automaton into an upright position. He quickly found that his second creation was much harder to lift than Rabbit had been. That might have just been because Iris wasn’t around to assist him, and when he had no help, the effort caused his heavy, swollen stomach to cramp. He winced from the pain, and the faint sound seemed to spur the automaton’s gears into action. Instantly he was sitting bolt upright, his head pivoting around to take in his new surroundings. Peter leaned against the table, huffing for breath and watching his creation. Suddenly the machine had craned his neck around and fixed his gaze on the engineer, his face drawn in what looked like worry. That left Peter baffled. Surely he couldn’t have known what that noise he’d made a moment ago meant.

“I’m fine,” he assured his creation, who didn’t seem to know what he meant. Trying to forget the subject, he went on. “You certainly like to see, don’t you?”

The automaton blinked, then turned away again, his head swiveling around to gain a whole picture of the room. The lights caught his attention, and he was transfixed by them for a moment before turning back to Peter with his face formulating a parody of a smile. He nodded excitedly, leaving his creator surprised yet again.

“You’re learning very fast,” he remarked. The automaton cocked his head in curiosity. “Learning. That’s, um... Well, I’ve never had to describe it before. It’s... it’s like seeing. Remember?” He pointed to his eyes, and the automaton did the same. “You know how to see. You know what seeing is. And soon enough, you’ll know more. That’s learning, I suppose. I daresay you are pretty splendid at it. Other than speaking, I mean, but...” He trailed off and shrugged. “I suppose it is a bit much just to get used to the feeling of being awake.”

The automaton stared at him in silence for a moment, then his chassis shivered faintly. His mouth shakily opened, and he murmured a single word in a deep, grainy voice.

“A-awake?”

The instant the word left his mouth, there was a revving in his chest and oil exploded from his synthetic throat. Peter gasped, taking an unwitting step back. The automaton let out a low whimper of distress and his hands flew up to cover his mouth, like he was trying to stem the flow of black sludge that spilled out. His creation looked over at him, his eyes upset, then at the oil still oozing through his fingers. “I-it’s alright,” Peter reassured him, stepping forward again to place a hand on his arm. “I-I can clean that up. I just need to get some rags or something. Stay here.”

He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to tell the automaton to stay, since he didn’t know how to do very much else, but he figured he was better safe than sorry as he stumbled around the lab looking for a few spare cleaning rags. There were a few hung up to dry on the sink faucet, so he grabbed those and returned to his invention. The oil was dripping onto the tabletop now, and the automaton was staring at it, looking as though he were horrified by his own mistake. Gently, Peter pulled his hands away from his mouth and started the arduous task of clearing the viscous stains away. He started with the automaton’s hands, taking care to press the rag into the narrow joints of his long, nimble fingers. After firmly advising him to keep his hands away from the oil, Peter went on to cleaning up his face, then his chest and legs, leaving the table for last. The automaton watched him intently the whole time, as if he found something fascinating in the simple act of his creator cleaning up an oil spill.

The rags were soggy and entirely black by the time the mess had been thoroughly cleaned. Peter rinsed them out in the sink and hung them to dry again before promptly turning his efforts towards helping the automaton stand up. It wasn’t nearly as much work as it had been to make him sit up, and for that, Peter was all too grateful. Once on his feet, the automaton seemed to be standing firmly, but his long legs faltered as soon as he tried to take his first step, leaving him stumbling like a newborn colt. Peter was quick to assist him, although as soon as he got close, the machine seemed to suddenly get his bearings again. In next to no time, he was meandering smoothly around the lab as if he’d been doing it his whole life. Which, technically, he had.

Peter watched from the oil-stained worktable, an absent smile on his face. In the far corner, the automaton was carefully inspecting the boiler. He turned towards his creator and tried to imitate his facial expression. “You’re doing fantastically,” the engineer said. “Just wait until your sister sees you.”

The automaton cocked his head and once again, Peter remembered that he’d forgotten to explain what he meant. “Your sister,” he repeated. “I built her, too. She’s... well, she’s like you, but also different from you. I suppose you’ll understand when you see her.” He watched the mechanical man’s eyes brighten at the idea of seeing a new face and found himself sharing the excitement. “Oh, she’ll be delighted! And you still have to meet Iris, too. And Johona, and... They’re going to be thrilled. I’m sure of it.”

Jolted by excitement, the automaton loped over to him, his face still stuck in a smile, and looked frantically around. Suddenly his smile faded, and he turned to Peter, the glow in his eyes faintly dimmed with confusion. “I’m afraid your sister isn’t in the lab,” he explained. “She’s upstairs, with Iris. That way. See?” He pointed towards the stairs, and the automaton’s gaze followed. “You’ll have to walk up, but I’ll help you. It’ll be easy, once you get the hang of it.”

His creation didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he still let Peter lead him to the base of the stairs. He gently pushed and pulled at the automaton’s legs to urge him forward. It was slow going. This automaton was more reserved and infinitely more cautious than Rabbit had been. Internally, Peter was thankful for it. It wasn’t only because Rabbit had fallen down the stairwell twice before Iris had finally taught her to climb properly and convinced her to take her time. Peter had really started hating stairs over the past month. While he’d never been excessively proud of his physical condition, he’d never before been faced with the struggle of trying to walk up an incline while feeling like he’d accidentally swallowed a bowling ball. Even making it up to the first landing seemed to leave him winded now.

Half an eternity later, the automaton reached the heavy door at the top of the stairs without any incidents to speak of, much to Peter’s relief. He carefully sidestepped his creation to open it. The hinges creaked, and he coaxed the automaton into the library. The machine did so willingly, wandered a few steps and froze. Peter thought his reaction a bit strange and shut off the basement lights before crossing through himself and closing the door behind him.

It was when he saw Johona standing beside Iris with her arms folded over her chest that a bad feeling began to instinctively set in. At the sound of the latches sliding shut, she turned toward him, a stern expression fixed on her face. All she said was, “We need to talk.”

Peter’s heart sank. Something was coming, he could feel it, and the way things had been going lately, it couldn’t have been anything good. He glanced sideways at his latest creation, suddenly feeling like he couldn’t have chosen a worse time to have gifted yet another unsuspecting machine with life. He opened his mouth, about to ask what it was that needed to be discussed, but a mechanized, stuttering voice interrupted before he could speak.

“Peter, who’s th-th-tha-that?”

Rabbit was crouched on the floor between Iris and Johona. Somehow he’d failed to see her there, and now her glassy eyes were fixated on the tall silver figure that stood, stoic and silent, beside her creator. The other two women in the room had their gazes fixed on him in a similar manner, surely wondering the same thing.

“This is... um...” he started to explain. “Well, in a manner of speaking, I guess you could say... Rabbit, this is your brother.”

“B-b-brother?” Rabbit inquired. “My brother? M-my brother?” She repeated the word a few times, rolling around the sound of it on her tongue. “P-Peter, what’s a b-bro-brother?”

“What is a brother?” he echoed. It seemed today was a day of hard-to-answer questions. “Well, it’s... it’s someone who is made by the same person that made you.”

“A brother.” The coppery automaton ventured a little closer to her inventor’s newest creation. “Th-th-th-that’s my brother?”

“Yes, he is.” Peter over at his other creation, who was still standing motionless and looking vaguely bewildered. “Go on,” he quietly urged him. “Say hello.”

The silver machine said nothing, only returned to staring at his sister. Rabbit decided to take the initiative herself and leapt forward to fling her arms tight around her brother’s body, leaving him stalled and startled. “He-hello, brother!” she trilled in elation, her facial mechanisms pulling into a broad smile.

He remained motionless, looking even more confused than before, but he seemed to relax a bit when Rabbit let him go. Abruptly she grabbed his wrist and towed him toward the couches, babbling excitedly about herself all the way. She pulled him to sit beside her a the fainting couch, he listened to her talk a while, and at long last his faceplate shifted out of its startled expression and gave a faint smile.

“I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Johona remarked. “You’ve managed to make another one of them already?”

“There’ll be more of them in the near future,” Peter elaborated. “I have the plans laid out already. He was just the one closest to completion after Rabbit.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got a fire in your belly.” She glanced at him and smirked. “Among other things.”

Peter squinted at her and scoffed.

“He’s quiet,” Iris pointed out. “Any reason for that?”

“Nothing especially,” Peter replied. “There was a minor incident in the lab after I woke him. His vocal mechanism leaked when it started up, which I was expecting, but he wasn’t. He might just be a little sore about it.”

“Seems he’s learned to be self-conscious even earlier than most humans do,” Jo added.

Peter rolled his eyes. “You said we needed to talk about something.”

“I _do_ , but I feel like I deserve at least a vague explanation for why you came out of the basement with another walking steam engine on your heels.”

“He’s the next performer. You can’t have a band that has only one member. Rabbit was only the first, and my original design involved two others. And _he_ is the second.” He punctuated with a showcasing gesture at the silver automaton.

Johona’s eyes followed the direction of her friend’s extended arm briefly before she shook her head and sighed. “Peter, I honestly don’t think that this was a good time to be awakening another machine.”

“Why not?” He felt more than a little offended at that. “Just because things are a little complicated, did you expect me to put my life’s work on hold?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, specifically, but I feel I should mention that if this one is anything like Rabbit was in her first days, then dealing with Mr. Kahn tomorrow is going to be infinitely more difficult than it would have been in the first place.”

All of a sudden, Peter felt as if his heart had stopped. “I-I’m sorry, we’re dealing with Mr. Kahn when?”

“T-tomorrow,” Iris stammered. “He... he appeared in front of the house today. Asking for you. Jo managed to ward him off, but he says he’ll be returning every day from now on until we permit him to speak with you.” Her voice sounded weak as she delivered the news. One look at her assured Peter that it was new information to her as well, and she was desperately trying to soften its blow on him.

“Taggart’s emissary is...” he started, but he trailed off. He gave in to the heaviness of his body and sank back on the couch, slumped over and stared off into space. “Christ,” he groaned, “Did he specify a time?”

“Not a word of specification,” Johona clarified, “but he didn’t appear until nearly sunset today. If that’s the schedule he usually keeps to, then I’d be able to give you a relative estimate. But there’s really no way of knowing that either.”

“If we have to be awake at daybreak tomorrow-”

“But he know’s that you’re supposed to be sick,” Iris interjected, causing both the others to turn to her for an explanation. The maid began nervously playing with the strings of her apron. “What I was referring to was... I-I mean, it seems common sense to me that when someone is sick, they should be resting. To promote healing and such. So... why would Mr. Kahn be coming here at a time when Peter probably isn’t even awake?”

“That’s a good point. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it first,” Johona commented. “Although there’s no knowing if Kahn has nearly as much common sense as you or I do.”

“And what about your job?” Peter cut in.

“I was getting to that,” his friend replied, shooting him a sharp glance. “I suppose I could request an early departure tomorrow morning and see what’s the fastest mode of transport back to San Diego. If I can get out... let’s say, around noon, I could be back within an hour. Now, provided Kahn doesn’t show up any earlier than that, I’ll be here to manage how much access he gets.”

“Good.” Peter nodded along as she spoke, listening intently. He cast a cursory glance at Iris, feeling a faint touch of relief for her sake. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. He knew all too well that Iris would be far more capable when facing a stranger than he had ever been at any point in his life. She had promised him that she would do everything in her power to protect him, his secret, and especially the twins. But there had been no purchase of the double-barrelled shotgun he had briefly imagined weeks ago, and facing down a man forceful and demanding enough for him to be hired as an emissary for the thick-skulled Taggart was something he felt was far from necessary for someone with a backstory like hers.

“Let me think this through,” Iris timidly requested. “The plan is to intercept Mr. Kahn on his way in and keep him from getting close to Peter?”

“That’s the idea,” her employer replied.

“But he won’t leave us alone until he has a chance to speak with you.”

The room fell momentarily silent, save for Rabbit’s excited and unintelligible rambling to her brother. The cogs in Peter’s head had ceased their turning, and it sank in that they had little reason to turn any longer. “No, he won’t,” he murmured. “That’s the only reason Taggart paid for his passage here, as it is.”

Johona huffed, crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. “Then we’ll just have one more thing to sort out,” she said with a tone of finality.

* * *

Deliberation lasted hours. The conversation of plotting had lasted all the way through dinner and followed Peter, Johona and Iris to the engineer’s study, then to the parlor when a suspicious crash from the ground floor reminded them that it wasn’t advisable to leave Rabbit alone for too long. That was the same reason Iris was awake now, after all. 

She hadn’t bothered to look at a clock in quite a while. It had been shortly before 1 AM when she had urged herself to wakefulness in Peter’s room. Without her employer there to need her presence, she easily could have chosen to sleep in her own room instead, but she’d barely spent a single night in her own quarters over the past few weeks. Peter’s room, in all honesty, was starting to feel more like a home to her than the one that she had chosen for herself.

Iris had found him in the library like the first night he’d had to watch Rabbit, half-asleep in exactly the same way. He was leaned against the arm of the couch, watching Rabbit avidly engaging with her brother with bleary eyes. The skeletal, unshelled automaton was pulling her brother around the room, talking at length and showing him all the things that she had learned about since her own awakening. Her eyes twitched toward Iris as she entered the room, and she took a second to point the maid out and remind her brother who she was before going back to whatever she’d been rambling about before.

Iris crept close to her employer and gently set her hand on his shoulder. “Peter, your shift is over.”

He jolted a little with the shock of waking up and looked frantically around, looking like a student caught dozing off in class. “Hnn?” he mumbled in mild confusion before his eyes finally landed on her. “O-oh. Iris. Is it one already?”

“Close enough to it,” she replied. She settled herself on the couch next to him and let her fingers flit through his hair. “The time couldn’t have passed all that quickly to you, could it?”

“I can’t remember. Besides, would it even matter this late at night?”

“I’d wager not.”

Peter sighed and leaned towards her, letting his head fall on her shoulder. “I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me.”

Iris laughed. “I’m only doing my job, Peter.”

“Well it’s the best blasted job you could possibly be doing.”

“It certainly is.”

She hoped he knew what she meant. She hoped he didn’t. She was certain he was too tired to work through implications. Iris stood up and helped Peter to his feet. He stumbled a bit, his ungainly form almost making him fall forward. He wrapped an arm around his body to hold his very distended belly and exhaled sharply. “One of these days I’m going to fall on my face because of this godforsaken thing.”

“Not if you’re careful, you won’t,” Iris said with a slight smile. “And not as long as I’m around to catch you.”

“Is that a promise?” her employer murmured. 

Iris felt her pulse rise up in her throat. “It could be.”

He laughed softly and leaned against her a second longer before stepping back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“I wouldn’t dream of anything else.”

“Goodnight, Iris.”

“Goodnight.”

With that, he disappeared from the room. Iris’s heart was throbbing. She had gone weak at the knees. Had she heard him right? She could have sworn that he’d asked if she was promising... what was it? To stay with him? For good? But he couldn’t have. He certainly seemed awake enough to have been thinking clearly. There was no dream-induced haze to cloud his head and push him to say things he didn’t intend. Why would he say something like that? Swaying like a wilting lily, she let herself fall back and plunk down on the edge of the sofa. Her pulse rang in her ears, and she stared blankly at the wall. Did he mean to toy with her like this? She certainly hoped not, but intentional or not, his words had hit her like a slap to the face.

There was a faint mechanical creaking, and in a moment, Rabbit was crouched next to the couch, her still-unnamed brother close behind. “Iris, w-w-where did Peter g-go?” she asked.

Right away, the maid snapped to attention. “He’s gone to bed,” she explained. 

“Is he sle-sle-sle-eping now?”

“I hope so. He definitely needs it.”

Rabbit nodded, accepting the answer, and quickly turned to her brother to explain what all of it meant. Iris watched the two of them converse. They were entertaining to watch, even as isolated and untrained as they were. So far, the second automaton still had yet to speak, and Rabbit had more than made up for the words her brother left unsaid. Much like how she had tried to fast-track her way through learning the basics of living, she seemed to be trying to figure her brother out at an accelerated pace. It might have been because he had given them all so little evidence of a personality, while Rabbit was shaping up to be eagerly social. She probably wanted to learn as fast as possible how to cheer him, even when his reactions were so ambiguous. Rabbit would definitely be a good performer in the future, Iris thought to herself as she studied the automatons. She would be once Peter worked out all the bugs in her vocal mechanism and taught her to play a few instruments, of course. Even with such a bombastic personality, there were still the technical aspects to work through.

“See, b-brother, humans need t-t-to do something called slee-ee-eep,” she busily explained to her brother. “A-a-and, basically-ly, what that means is they l-lay down an’ close their eyes, and then they k-kinda... kinda j-j-j-just stay still and don’t do much for a r-r-r-r-real long time.”

The silver automaton cocked his head in confusion.

“Y-yeah, I dunno why they n-need to do that, ei-ei-ei-ither. Peter t-t-tol-told me that it’s kinda like r-recharging. They n-need it to get energy, because humans don’t have c-c-c-cores like we do.”

Her brother stayed motionless for a second, then slowly nodded, like it had taken a moment for the information to process.

“An’ Peter n-needs to sleep a lo-lo-lot. Johona t-told me so. He has’ta sleep because he’s s-sick, an’ he needs rest to g-get better.” She paused, and Iris heard the gears in her brain grinding from effort before she continued. “B-bein’ sick is kinda like... l-li-like when something stops working. But with humans, y’see?”

The second automaton’s faceplate pulled into an expression akin to worry, and for a moment, Iris felt her own face do the same. Did Rabbit even know enough to be talking to her brother about this? Surely she couldn’t have known more than bits and pieces that she’d picked up from conversations. How much did that amount to? As far as she knew, they had Rabbit attached to the same story of nameless illness that they’d fed to everyone else. She’d mentioned Johona; did that mean that Peter’s friend had actually had this conversation with her? She made a mental note to ask about it and was about ready to intervene when Rabbit spoke up again.

“C-c’mon, brother, d-d-don’t be like that. I said he’d get better, didn’t I?” Her brother nodded, and Rabbit imitated the action. “That’s right. But for now, he’s s-sick, so we g-g-g-gotta be nice to him. Th-that’s why he’s gotta sleep so much, a-a-an’ why he can’t move around real f-fast. And it’s why he glows like we do.”

Iris’s eyebrows rose at that. Had Rabbit drawn that conclusion herself, or had someone told her?

“I dunno w-why-why his belly’s so big, though,” she went on. “Johona an’ Iris d-don’t look like that. Th-they don’t talk about it much, an’ I’ve never b-b-bothered asking, but...” Rabbit leaned towards her brother’s ear and stage-whispered, seemingly thinking that would keep Iris from hearing her. “S-s-so-sometimes... I-I’ve seen it move. It’s r-r-r-real weird.”

Outside of herself, the conversation topic moved on to something else, but Iris was still stuck on the last one. A drowsy panic was starting to set in, and automatically she began asking unspoken questions that the empty air around her couldn’t answer. How much did Rabbit know about Peter’s condition? Surely she knew nothing of how reproduction worked in living things. There had been no reason or pretense to tell her anything. They’d been careful when speaking around her not to mention any of what had been going on. As far as they knew, the automaton had boarded the same train of thought that they’d driven towards everyone else they knew: Peter was sick for the time being and his illness was responsible for the current state of his life. But what if she’d already started to suspect that there was something they weren’t telling her?

Of course, the plan for the following day was to keep Rabbit as far from Mr. Kahn as possible, at least for the majority of his visit. There was no telling what she’d say, even with as little information as she had. Now Iris realized that they’d had good reason to worry. 

What did Rabbit suspect was going on? She knew that the automaton, as precocious as she was, still had no knowledge of how to keep a secret. She would definitely tell them her thoughts if any of them asked her. But then, what if she expected them to do the same? If she asked to know the truth about what was going on with her creator, what were they supposed to tell her? There were so few other ways to explain the swelling and the movement and everything else. Even worse, there was still so much that they themselves didn’t know. They couldn’t give Rabbit answers that they didn’t have.

Maybe if they were thorough about it. Maybe if it was made clear that Rabbit couldn’t share the information with anyone outside of the house. She was sweet and understanding, as mischievous as she could be at times. If luck was on their side, Rabbit knowing the truth might even be helpful in the long run. But explaining would be difficult. Iris wouldn’t dare to be the one to break the news, and whoever did certainly couldn’t do it alone. 

For the time being, though, the less Rabbit and her brother knew, the better. They could hold off on explanations at least until Mr. Kahn left them. Until then, Iris only hoped that Rabbit would keep quiet on the matter, to her brother and anyone else.

* * *

Arthur Kahn must have gotten lost again. Sunset was only a few scant hours away, and there was still no sign of him that Johona could see. In her opinion, that was as close to the opposite of a problem as she could get. 

Half a day at the hospital hadn’t provided her adequate time to get her hands on the rest of the supplies she would need for the house’s new decoration scheme. She might have appreciated it, were it available, but impending events were already putting her under enough strain, not to mention the fact that the doctor had chosen today to finally confront her about her actions. She had managed to pass off the blame to Peter again, claiming that he’d been getting worse and she needed to be more cautious not to contaminate the hospital wards with whatever had infested her friend’s home. The coverup had been serving them well so far. Besides, it might have been better that way, since Kahn had already seen it in its current state. 

The request to take an early leave had gone over easily. All she’d had to do was cut a deal with the doctor and promise to stop stealing the quarantine supplies. That was an easy deal to make, since she was sure they wouldn’t need them any longer after today.

She hadn’t been able to rehearse her dialogue with Kahn very much. She’d plotted one out, of course, even with the single night she’d had to work on it. She hadn’t been able to make it excessively complicated, since she could only put together so much about what he would say and do from the short interaction that they’d had. Only a few practiced responses to questions he was likely to ask. That would probably cover most of it.

Johona had taken care to run to the kitchen and put on gloves and a mask the very moment she arrived at the manor. Iris, ever dependable, had been wearing her own since the morning, just in case the unexpected happened. As for Peter... well, Johona didn’t very well know where he was, but she was sure that he would be staying out of sight, as per their plan.

That was the most important part of the scheme, after all. Peter could not be seen by anyone.

For the time being, her job was simply to sit in the foyer and keep watch. She’d kept a book at her side, since it wasn’t really in her nature to pass time by staring at windows, and in the time she’d spent at the base of the main stairwell, she’d managed to finish it entirely. Now it sat closed beside her, and she was starting to get restless. She considered running to the library and fetching another one, but the idea hadn't lasted. Knowing herself, she would probably spend too long choosing one and Kahn would be kept waiting. Waiting was the last thing on Johona’s mind; she wanted to get this whole shenanigan over with as soon as possible.  _ The anticipation is probably worse than the confrontation could ever be _ , she thought to herself.

With nothing else to do, her mind wandered to the last conversation she’d had with the mysterious Mr. Kahn. He seemed to be the kind who was quick to change dispositions. He’d done it several times, even in the few meager minutes that they spent together. She’d found it frustrating but, in some small part, entertaining. He’d probably be easy to toy with, if that was the way he always was. Perhaps he’d become so confused by his own conflicted thoughts that he would give up and leave them alone. 

It was somewhat satisfying to imagine Kahn returning to Africa only to tell Babclock that he simply couldn’t deal with the residents at Walter manor, that it wasn’t worth all the frustration to fight with his irritating nurse-friend long enough to get through to Mr. Walter. It probably wouldn’t go nearly that swimmingly. And that was perfectly fine. She wasn’t anticipating that it would.

* * *

“I still don’t g-get it,” Rabbit said while she stared up at the library ceiling. “Who ex-xactly  _ is _ M-M-Mr. Kahn?”

“An emissary,” Iris explained, caught up with the nagging feeling that she’d explained this exact concept to Rabbit no more than a few minutes earlier. “He talks to people in place of someone else. He’s a communicator.” Before leaving for work that morning, Johona had requested that Iris go on through her routine of chores as if the day were no different from any other. She’d kept a face mask and gloves on her as a precaution, just in case something unexpected should happen while she was busy tidying up the library. 

“A... co-mu-ni-c-c-cator,” Rabbit parroted back to her, considering the word for a moment. “And Babclock can’t come her-er-ere himself because he’s in Africa?” 

As it happened, it had also fallen to her to keep watch of Rabbit for the day. Peter taken to supervising her brother, who in nearly 24 hours still had yet to speak a single word. Already Iris could already tell that the two automatons couldn’t have been more different from one another. It came as no surprise to her that the task of keeping after Rabbit would entail a lot of explaining, especially on such a day, but she hadn’t foreseen the sheer number of questions that it would raise from her employer’s naive creation.

“That’s right.” 

“B-but isn’t Mr. K-K-K-Ka-ahn coming here from Africa, too?”

“Mr. Babclock has a lot of important work to do that he can’t leave behind. If he came here to talk to Peter instead of sending someone else, people might get hurt.”

Gears whirred in the automaton’s head while she processed her words. The room was unsettlingly quiet for a long time before she spoke up again. When she finally did, it was to ask another question. “D-do... Do Mr. Babclock and Mr. Kahn want to hurt Peter?”

“No!” Iris answered instantaneously. “I... I mean... I don’t think so.” Suddenly she found it hard to respond. “It’s hard to say. They don’t want to hurt him directly. I mean, they wouldn’t want to do it themselves, but they want to put him in a situation where he might get hurt.”

“B-but you read me an’ m-m-my brother all the letters. He s-s-said he wants Peter’s help, not to h-h-hurt him.”

“That’s the problem. They do want Peter’s help. They desperately need it, but at the same time, they’re in a very bad place themselves.”

“And Peter can’t help because he’s sick, right?”

“That’s right.”

Things were quiet for a while longer. Iris returned to sweeping dust from the corners of the library, agonizing over the near future, before her ears registered the faint staccato click of gears. She turned around to see that Rabbit was sitting up now, gazing at her from across the room. Her facial mechanisms were composed in an odd way, some emotion that Iris didn’t quite have a name for.

“H-hey, Iris,” the automaton said.

“Yes?”

“How come nobody know what’s wr-wrong with Peter?”

For a brief second, Iris thought she felt her heart stop. “What?” she asked numbly.

“I-I know he’s sick,” Rabbit went on. “An’ that it’s d-d-doing a lot of weird stuff to him. But how come n-no-nobody knows what’s m-makin’ him sick?”

“That’s not completely true, Rabbit. We do know what’s making Peter the way he is.”

“Th-then how come you won’t t-t-t-t-tell me?”

Iris’s fingers tightened around the handle of the broom. This was exactly what she had been worrying about the night before. She had feared that Rabbit was suspicious. After being alive for little more than a week, she’d already become astoundingly attached to Peter. It wouldn’t be long before she started to notice.

“It’s...” she began. “It’s hard to explain. I could try, but even if I did, I’m not sure you would understand.”

“B-b-bu-but I g-g-gotta know!” Rabbit childishly protested. “If you tell me w-what’s wrong, maybe I can help.”

“You’re still a prototype, Rabbit. Even if you knew everything that Johona and I know, I’m not sure that there would be anything you could do.”

That shut Rabbit up in the worst way possible. Her jaw hung open, like she was ready to respond, and Iris could hear her gears spinning, but that was the only sound she made. Slowly, her mouth closed and she turned away to stare at the floor. “I just don’t like bein’ c-c-confused all the time,” she mumbled. “Th-th-thass’ it.”

Iris didn’t say a word and tired to go back to sweeping, but the distinct lack of Rabbit’s lively rambling put her on edge. In the whole week she’d been alive, the automaton had never been this quiet. Hesitantly, Iris risked a glance back at her to see that she was still sitting up, slumped slightly forward. Her bare, skeletal face seemed crumpled, somehow. Something about the sight was so pitiful, and suddenly, Iris had found her voice again.

“You really want to know the truth that badly?” 

Rabbit looked up at her but didn’t speak. Iris sighed and went on.

“I don’t think I have the time to explain right now. Aside from that, I don’t know that the others would want me to be sharing the information with you. I don’t want to alarm you, either. You’re still so new to everything, and this... well, frankly, Peter was hoping we might have been able to hold off on talking about such matters until you were a little older.”

“So you were really g-gonna tell me all alo-lo-lo-long?” Rabbit piped up.

“About what’s troubling Peter, you mean?”

“Y-yeah.”

“I suppose you could say we were. Something like that.”

“So why do I h-ha-hav’ta wait?”

“Because right now isn’t a good time to tell you. Mr. Kahn is going to be arriving soon to talk to Peter, and we have to make sure he knows just how sick he is.”

“Does Mr. Kahn know what’s wrong with Peter?”

“No,” Iris said, shaking her head. “And we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it stays that way.”

“Why not? W-would he... would he a-an’ Mr. Babclock hurt Peter if they knew?”

“They might. None of us can be sure. It’s a lot more complicated than anything I have time to explain right now.” She paused for a second, thinking. “Do you really want to know what’s happening to Peter?”

The automaton nodded vehemently, giving Iris all the incentive she needed to go on. 

“Then I’ll have to ask a favor of you.”

“W-what favor?”

“I know I’ve already asked you to be on your best behavior while Mr. Kahn is here. But if you want to know the truth, I’ll need to ask one more thing of you. Don’t mention anything about Peter’s illness for the rest of the day. Don’t mention anything about his condition, what he looks like or anything else you’ve seen. I need you not to say a single word about it until after Mr. Kahn’s left and I tell you it’s safe to ask.”

She nodded again. “An’ then you’ll tell me about Peter?”

Iris let her lips curve into a faint smile. “As long as the others say it’s okay, I will.”

“Then I’ll b-be good,” Rabbit affirmed. “I-I’ll be quiet. Qui-iet like a m-m-mouse. I p-pro-promise.” She folded her legs under her, lifted her hands to cover her mouth and sat there like that, gazing at Iris with watchful, excited eyes.

“Perfect,” Iris declared, letting slip a small laugh as she returned to sweeping. That was it. Rabbit had given her word. She only hoped that the automaton was capable of keeping it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of that.  
> Time to go watch videos of various animals giving birth, because that's how I spend my Sunday 3am hours.  
> See you next chapter.


	21. An Audience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL THIS EVENING, A HAYLEY KIYOKO CONCERT ABSOLUTELY BROKE ME AS A HUMAN BEING. I NO LONGER FUNCTION. BEST STATE TO BE MAKING AN UPDATE IN.  
> It actually is a great state to update in. I haven't been in this good a mood in a long time.  
> Besides that, I skipped last week.  
> I also haven't written any new material in around a week? And that's a minor problem? My actual progress on this story is several chapters ahead of everyone who bothers with reading this garbage. I'm so close to the end. It's in sight, but I'm just....... this past week was a mess but I think worshipping at the altar of my lesbian goddess has fixed things.  
> I regret a lot of things, but not this.  
> Anyway, thanking the people I've thanked in any of my other chapters. Useless tumblr plugs that no one is going to pay attention to. At cicada_s where are you my dude, I miss getting your attention and your actual interest in the fucked up garbage I create.  
> CONTENT WARNING FOR VAGUE DESCRIPTIONS OF A WAR ZONE AND SOME STRONG FUCKING LANGUAGE.  
> While my roommate plays Dragon Age in the background and I listen to ambient cultish chanting....  
> Let's get on with it.

 

San Diego was proving to be much more confusing than Taggart Babclock had made it out to be in his descriptions of the place. Public transportation had turned out to be something of a nightmare. The trolley schedule was virtually nonexistent, stops seemingly left up to chance. Not to mention that they only circulated around the most populated parts of the city. There was only one interstate train station, since the mediocre port city didn’t quite merit the need for a transportation system that large-scale.

Cabs were the only service that would dependably travel where the schedule dictated, and it was irritatingly expensive to hire one every time that transport was required. This might have been an all-expenses-paid trip, but Taggart Babclock had a very set idea of exactly what those expenses would be. Arthur Kahn was on a fixed budget, and he hadn’t been provided with nearly enough to hire a driver every time he returned to Mr. Walter’s manor. The way things seemed to be going, he feared that he would need to return to that very manor quite often.

In retrospect, he supposed that the first trip there hadn’t been entirely pointless. He’d at least learned where the location of the aged mansion was, and he knew that the address given him first by Taggart, then the post office, was indeed the correct one. Now, sitting in the backseat of a cab as it bumped and blundered its way down the paved prairie road that led to the remote mansion, he felt just a little better prepared. If that woman answered the door again, he would know how to deal with her. He hoped there was no one else who would give him a such hard time about getting through to Mr. Walter himself.

The wheels of the cab rattled as they pulled up near the front walk. Arthur collected himself and stepped out. He took a moment to deposit his current fee into the driver’s waiting palm and advised him to return in two hours. The cab promptly pulled away and disappeared down the road, leaving Arthur alone. Feeling habitually nervous, he started towards the front door.

The boards of the porch creaked when he traversed them, just like the last time. He stood up straight as possible, raised one hand and rapped it against the door in a firm, businesslike manner. Behind the gauze-shielded windows, he thought he spied a semblance of movement. Not a second later, the door swung halfway open on its old, squeaky hinges. The native woman from the previous day stood in the doorway, this time garbed properly in a pair of gloves and a cotton surgical mask, stark white against her tan skin.

“Oh,” she mumbled. “It’s you.”

Arthur took the opportunity to straighten his posture again, setting his shoulders back to stand with what he hoped looked like an air of confidence. “Indeed it is,” he retorted. “I told you I would be returning.”

“And you’re just as late as you were yesterday, too.”

“What?” Arthur balked. Of all the things she could have introduced him with...

“You showed up yesterday just before sunset,” the woman explained. “Just as I was returning from work. At least this time you’ve managed to catch me  _ after _ I had the opportunity to protect myself.”

“I can see that,” he quipped. “Now... I’m assuming you have more of those on hand that I could borrow?”

“Potentially, I could.” She folded her arms sternly over her chest. “Provided I have a good reason to let you have them.”

“Listen, madam, I’ll have you know again that I have been sent here on extremely urgent business. I don’t have time for banter like this. Every day I spend here is another day wasting my employer’s money, and I’ll be damned if I have to-”

“But consider this,” the woman interrupted. “I could send you back to your employer infested with a nameless, incurable illness. Maybe once it’s contaminated him and all his allies, he’ll understand the severity of someone’s situation other than his own.”

Arthur scowled at her, highly offended. “You wouldn’t.”

“Quite the contrary, should you feel the need to test me on the matter. I take it you actually are planning on coming back here every single day until we give in to your demands and Mr. Babclock’s?”

“Is my being here not enough evidence for you?”

She studied him for a moment, tapped a fingertip against her cloth-covered chin and, after a long moment of silence, said, “I see. Wait here, just a moment.”

The door was abruptly slammed shut again, leaving Arthur standing alone on the porch once more. The woman had shut the door so quickly that he hadn’t had a chance to stop it. He felt like an imbecile for having missed his chance now, as well as mildly flabbergasted by the way the interaction was going far. He couldn’t tell if events were leading up to something bad or good. The woman had told him that she had gone in to get him his own layers of protection, but at the same time, he would not put it past her to lie and leave him standing out on the porch like an idiot until his cab showed up again.

Sure enough, just as he was beginning to believe that he’d been had by the woman in the surgical mask, the door opened again and she was standing there with the supplies in her hand. “Here,” she said brusquely, holding them out towards him.

Quickly, Arthur unfolded the mask to slip it on over his mouth and nose, then went to slide his hands into the gloves. “Thank you,” he muttered, taking care to lack any sincerity.

“For future reference, this is all I’ll be able to give you,” she quickly replied. “Should you decide to make another visit, I’ll expect you to plan a bit further ahead.”

“So long as I can carry out the conversation that I crossed half the world to have, I wouldn’t expect to hear very much more from me.”

The woman looked suspiciously at him for a long while before stepping back and ushering him through the door. The second Arthur crossed the threshold, he felt as though he’d stepped into a mauseoleum.

The foyer was empty and dead silent. His footsteps produced an uncomfortable echo that bounced off the walls.

“How long has it been like this around here?” he found himself absently asking.

“Months,” the woman replied. “This place hasn’t seen visitors in quite a while. I’m afraid it’s all due to the contagion. Mr. Walter had to let go of his whole housekeeping staff to keep them from falling ill.” She stopped and turned back to him, and it was only then that Arthur realized that, unlike his, her feet made no sound when they crossed the floor. “Well, he had to let go of all of them except for Iris. Poor thing caught the sickness almost as soon as Walter had.” When she spun back around to continue walking, he caught a glimpse of suede leather moccasins on her feet.  _ How typical _ , he thought disdainfully. “Speaking of her, she’d know better than I would where to find the man you’re after.”

“And where would she be herself?”

“Hell if I know. I’ve been home less than ten minutes.” Arthur scoffed, and immediately she spun around, glowering at him over her mask. “It was your decision to show up when you did, Mr. Kahn.”

“Maybe, but I would expect a man’s housekeeping staff to at least know where their employer is.”

“I’ve told you before that I’m not a part of his housekeeping staff.”

“Then what  _ are _ you?”

“I’m a personal friend of Walter’s,” she explained. “Babclock must have at least mentioned the Cavalcadium to you. It’s the place that all this tragic mess originated, after all.”

“Of course he has, quite a few times. But I’m afraid that I still don’t understand. What need would he have for you here?”

“I don’t blame Babclock for not mentioning me. Not much, anyway. We never were on the best of terms. I was a part of the biology department. Now, professionally, I work as a nurse, but my biology scope extends quite a bit beyond what’s required of me for my job.”

“So you’re a nurse to him, then?”

The woman stopped, glanced back at him and sighed. “If that would make it easier for you, sure.”

She seemed visibly frustrated now, and Arthur felt it might have been a good time to stop pestering her. Instead, he looked around the rooms they traversed in search of the unfortunate Iris that she had mentioned. The grand mansion was surprisingly clean for being kept by only one servant. From what the nurse had told him, it was probably because Iris never left the house anymore. The housekeeper probably had nothing else to do with her time. Although, he theorized, if she was able to clean the place so thoroughly, even having been as ill as severely and for as long as Peter supposedly had, it was entirely possible that he wasn’t nearly as incapacitated as he made himself out to be in his letters.

It wasn’t until the thought crossed his mind that they entered the library and he saw her. Standing at the far corner of the room, a small, withered-looking woman dressed in a maid’s uniform was meticulously sweeping the floor. Her skin was brown and ashen, like it was meant to be dark, but hadn’t seen the sun in quite some time. Even from where he stood, he could faintly make out shadows under her eyes. The pair of tight French braids that pulled her hair back from her face seemed to be the only things keeping her eyelids from sliding shut. Close by, a strange-looking amalgamation of metal was perched on a sofa. Arthur took a step closer to look and realized with a sudden start that it was shaped like a person. Its skeletal frame of a body was adorned with a set of curvy legs, as well as a head with two glowing glass lenses that looked almost like eyes. Arthur felt a shiver crawl down his spine when they flashed in his direction.

“Ah, Iris. There you are!” the nurse exclaimed. “We were looking for you. This is Mr. Arthur Kahn, the one who’s here to speak with Peter.”

At first, Arthur wasn’t even sure that the maid had heard them. Slowly, her sweeping came to a stop and she raised her head to face the both of them. She had the look of a lifelong insomniac, like sleep was something that constantly evaded her, no matter how desperately she needed it. The maid spent a moment looking back and forth between them, a glazed look in her eyes. When she finally spoke, she did so in a soft, raspy voice, barely anything more than a whisper. “This is Mr. Kahn?”

“Th-the one and only,” the mentioned man stammered.

“Oh, my. It’s a...” Before the sentence was even halfway completed, the rasp in the maid’s voice suddenly hardened, and before Arthur could even be sure what was happening, she had broken down into a short coughing fit. She leaned on her broom and wheezed for a second afterward. “It’s... a-a pleasure to meet you, sir, I meant to say. I-I’m terribly sorry about that. It’s been happening lately.”

“N-not to worry, miss. I don’t mind.” Arthur debated telling her it was something he’d expected to see, but he thought better of it. Instead, he mentioned something that he hadn’t anticipated at all. “Would you mind telling me what that contraption on the couch is supposed to be?”

“Oh, that?” the nurse replied. “That’s Rabbit.”

“It doesn’t look like a rabbit.”

“Rabbit is her  _ name _ , Kahn. And she isn’t an  _ it _ . She’s an invention of Walter’s.”

“An invention?” Arthur approached the machine, who seemed to shrink into herself the closer he got. “And what does she do, exactly?”

“Well, she’s meant to be a performer, but she’s still new yet. She’s only been awake for a little over a week. Barely more than a prototype. These are the kinds of things you can’t rush, Mr. Kahn.”

Arthur didn’t quite understand, and he still felt mildly disturbed by Rabbit’s unwavering stare, but he had no apparent choice but to back off with a defeated sigh. “Right you are, I suppose,” he said before turning to Iris. “We came to ask about the whereabouts of your employer?”

“Last I saw him, he was upstairs,” Iris rasped. “He mentioned that he had some sorting to do in his study, but he seemed tired as well. He may have retreated to his room by now.” Her statement was punctuated by another fit of coughing. The nurse rushed to her side this time and held her up, delicately, at an arm’s length.

“Is there anything I should get you in the meantime, Iris?” she asked.

“N-no, no, I’m fine. I’m only... only a little worn out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’ll just... I’ll finish up in here, and then I’ll rest.”

A faint line etched between the nurse’s eyebrows, but she still acquiesced to let go of the maid. She nodded faintly, offered a soft “Very well, then” and turned around to leave, catching Arthur by the arm on her way out. As soon as they were out of earshot, she said, “Poor thing. I don’t think she’s ever been this sick in her life.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Babclock must have told you that none of us rightly know,” she responded, “but we do have a fair idea of the symptoms. Persistent nausea, fatigue, a whole lot of that drivel. But the worst part must be the vomiting. I sometimes fear Iris might have it even worse than Peter does, only she’s not the sort to complain. Her conditions has progressed so far, though, that all the acid is wearing away at her pharynx.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do about that?”

“Only what I can get her to freely agree to. I’ve advised her to rest before, but she’s always sold herself short. Seems I can’t stop her from working. I would offer to take up the housekeeping myself if I didn’t have an employer hanging over my shoulder.”

Arthur hummed in agreement, not sure what else to say. The conversation had taken them to the upstairs hallway, and now the nurse led him down the empty corridor to stop before one of the many doors. She knocked on it first, then turned to him. “Wait here,” she commanded. “Walter isn’t quite fond of strangers being in his study.”

“Does he have something to hide there?” he wondered aloud.

“No. He just keeps his things in an organized chaos, and if you don’t navigate it right, something could be misplaced.” She then cracked the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind her. Arthur heard her shuffling around for a short while before she emerged, less than a minute later.

“He isn’t there, I take it?” he asked.

“Nothing but a few documents he left lying around,” she answered. “Iris must have been right. He probably left to rest in his bedroom.”

“Well, I do you think he’ll be opposed to holding an audience there?”

That made the woman pause. She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow at him, her hands poised assertively on her hips. “Excuse me, would you mind repeating yourself? Because there must be some mistake. I thought I just heard you request to invade my friend’s privacy.”

“Th-that wasn’t my intent,” Arthur clarified, speaking as quickly as he could. “I only... I absolutely must speak with him, and I’m afraid that I’m on a time constraint. See, I told the cab driver that brought me here to return in two hours. I don’t know how long Mr. Walter is usually out of commission in periods like these, but I can’t-”

“Fine, fine. I understand,” the woman cut in. “I’ve been reading your employer’s letters, you know. I know all the details. This is an urgent situation, time is of the essence, blather blather blather... I can’t promise you much, but I’ll see what I can do.” She turned on her heel and started down the hallway.

Arthur was washed through by an overwhelming sense of relief as he tripped after her. “Thank you,” he said, sounding nearly as exhausted as he felt. “By the way, I realize I never managed to catch your name.”

“It’s Johona,” the woman replied shortly.

“Johona?”

“It’s Navajo. It means sun.”

“It’s lovely.”

Johona stopped short at another door. “In any other context, I might thank you,” she said, not turning to look at him. “Wait out here. If he’s open to conversation, I’ll let you know.” She tapped her knuckles against the door and gently wrapped her hand around the doorknob.

“Who is it?” a low, gravelly voice said from the other side.

With the invitation, Johona cracked open the door just enough to show her face through the gap. “It’s me. You’ve got a visitor.”

“A visitor? Dear god,” the voice croaked. “It’s the emissary, isn’t it.”

“The very same,” Arthur interjected, starting to push the door aside. “Arthur Kahn of Dandy Candy Industries, at your serv-” Before he could finish, Johona cut him short, turning around and quickly shoving him away from the door. She fixed him with a murderous glare.

“I know who you are,” the voice continued. It sounded almost exactly like Iris had when she spoke, only deeper. The speaker was definitely ill. It couldn’t be anyone but the elusive Peter Walter himself.

“Anyway,” Johona brusquely went on. “He wants to speak with you. Would you permit him to come in?”

“I wouldn’t advise that.”

“He’s been given a mask and gloves.”

“Johona,  _ you’re _ afraid to come in here yourself. You know this place is an absolute petri dish.”

The nurse sighed and glanced back at Arthur. “He’s right,” she mumbled.

Frustration took Arthur faster than he ever could have thought possible. “Really?” he tossed back viciously before leaning towards the opening of the door, and although Johona shoved him back again, too far to see inside, he shouted at the gap. “M-Mr. Walter, please. I have to go through with this meeting. This is already a matter of life and death! The Dandy Candy Corporation is collapsing as we speak. My employer can’t afford to wait any longer. Please, if you have any sense of humanity, let me speak with you.”

For a moment, there was no response. Johona pushed Arthur back, setting him in place with an overarching sense of finality. He felt ready to either give up or throw her aside when, finally, another raspy comment drifted through the slim opening in the door. “I only said you can’t come in,” Peter replied. “I never mentioned anything about conversing with you.”

“So you’ll speak with me?” Arthur pressed.

Peter coughed, then cleared his throat. “To the best of my ability.”

For a moment, Arthur was taken aback. After yesterday, he hadn’t expected reaching the engineer to be nearly this easy. “Th-thank you, sir,” he stammered, then cast a quick glance at Johona. 

“It might be best if I leave you to it,” she said. “Chances are he’ll be wanting some privacy.”

“Thank you, too,” Arthur said numbly. That seemed to be all that would come out of his mouth.

Johona nodded, turned and left. She took care to pull Peter’s bedroom door closed as she did, cutting off the small passage for whatever contaminated air had managed to drift through. This was shaping up to be unlike any conversation that Arthur had had before. But the awkwardness of the exchange was irrelevant.

He only hoped that he could complete the task he’d crossed the ocean to do.

* * *

When Peter heard the door click shut, he knew it was safe to move again. Reluctantly, he sat up and scooted himself to the edge of the bed to swing his legs over the edge. He had to hang onto the bedpost to stand up. His second automaton, who had been crouched silently in the corner of the room, quickly bolted to his feet and tottered to his creator’s side with a soft whirring of gears. He reached his silver arms out towards the engineer, who gratefully took them and let his creation help him up. Peter offered the machine a weak, nervous smile as a silent sort of “thank you,” which he readily accepted and returned.

Peter staggered to the chair he had placed by the door beforehand. He knew that he likely wouldn’t be able to stand for the whole duration of this conversation, his back being in the shape that it was. Every step his automaton followed him, and when he was sitting again, so was his creation. The silver figure crouched on the floor at the end of his bed now, watching him with a look of faint concern on his face. So far, he’d been surprisingly well-behaved. Granted, he was also hesitant and still had yet to speak another word beyond the one that had ended in an explosion of oil, but there was time enough for him to learn how to make noise. For now, muteness served him quite well.

“Right,” Peter murmured to himself, taking a steadying breath. “I’m assuming you’re here to talk to me about everything Taggart’s written in his letters.” His throat itched, and he coughed a few more times. The acid solution that Johona had asked him and Iris to drink that morning had done wonders, in terms of roughing up his voice. It even surprised him, how hoarse it made him sound, as if bile had been burning his throat for all of the past several months instead of the first few.

“I can’t put my finger on anything else that needs to be said,” Arthur Kahn replied. “Unless you have questions of your own.”

“Is there new information, then?”

“Well... in the past weeks, the situation has worsened by far. Thaddeus’s forces have moved into the mines themselves in an attempt to dig up more rock candy. They have no idea what they’re doing, though. Their machinery is all incorrect for the task, and they’re destroying the tunnels at this rate. Exporting has all but halted, and by now the company’s profit margin has started to decline sharply.”

“What about a body count?”

“When I left, there were...” Arthur paused for a moment, either caught in a moment of forgetfulness or repressed memory. “There were one hundred and eight casualties. Most of them mine laborers and overseers, but there have been attacks at the offices as well. Mr. Babclock’s already lost four corporate colleagues to the violence. They traveled from other locations to aid the combat effort, but things are still looking grim.”

Peter’s core shuddered as he tried to swallow the information. “Out of how many in the workforce?”

“Five hundred, relatively.”

“That’s...” The engineer sighed and pressed a hand to his mouth. He felt sick all of a sudden. “That’s a large proportion.”

“You don’t need to tell me what I already know, sir.”

The emissary’s words were laced with resentment. As before, guilt twisted in Peter’s chest. “I’m... sorry, Mr. Kahn,” he murmured. “I simply... I don’t seem to have any decent response.”

“Then how about this,” Arthur Kahn hissed, enough venom in his voice to sting Peter on the other side of the closed door. “How about you agree to help us, at long last? How about you pull yourself together, get over this sickness and stop your friend before more people have to die? Stop hiding from what’s really out there and-”

“I  _ know _ what’s out there, Mr. Kahn. Do you think that Taggart’s spared me any detail in his messages?”

“I firmly believe he has,” Arthur bitterly declared. “In fact, I know he has, because he never makes his letters lengthier than necessary. A waste of ink and paper, he says. These things cost money, like sending your employee across the Atlantic.”

“Don’t you think I don’t have financial issues of my own?”

“The mansion sends some mixed messages, but that’s all beside the point. What I’m getting at is that Mr. Babclock is putting forth a great deal of effort, time and resources in order to reach you, and it would be cruel of you to turn him down again after all he’s done, especially in his situation.”

“Don’t speak to me as if I know nothing about his situation!” Even with his weakened voice, Peter was on the verge of shouting. His throat strained, and he fell victim to another short, violent coughing fit. His spasming ribs pitched him forward a little too far, startling the twins, who immediately began to squirm in retaliation. Peter gasped softly as the coughing ended, straightened up and rubbed a hand over his belly to calm them. “Y-you said... there were details that Taggart never relayed to me,” he started over. “Would you terribly mind telling me what those are?”

Outside in the hallway, he heard Arthur Kahn sigh. “Good god,” he mumbled. “Where do I start... The labor force is terrified, as well as everyone in the surrounding area. They were herded out of the mines in droves, kicking and screaming all the way. Any force that Mr. Babclock has is powerless against his weapons. Thaddeus only ever had a small staff to assist him, but something’s come over them. Something changed, with the addition of these machines. They’re stronger, somehow, and even more ruthless than before. He’s been commanding them to force the machines into the mine tunnels- these things that aren’t meant to fit or function underground- they’re tearing up the caverns like corkscrews in wine bottles. Nearly all of the company’s equipment has been broken and removed. They tear pieces out of the rock with no precision, no intention, only destroying everything in sight to try and purge the earth of whatever rock candy it contains. And the people that get in their way...”

Peter listened, but it seemed the emissary had trailed off. “What of the people?” he prompted.

“They...” the emissary stuttered, as if the right words were evading him. “Ugh. There’s no point in telling you they’re dead. We’ve said it so many times, and it hardly even matters. It’s... It’s what he  _ does _ to them... the things I’ve seen him do to Corporation laborers, and even his own staff.”

The sick feeling returned to the pit of Peter’s stomach. His sense spread to the twins, and not a second later they had started to struggle inside him again. He put his arms around his belly, steeled himself and asked, “What kind of things?”

He could practically hear Arthur Kahn’s shudder. “Horrible things. S-so horrible I fear I’m at a loss to describe them,” he hesitantly began. “People were trampled and shot when they refused to leave the mines. Laborers had to be sent out to scrape their colleagues’ remains out of the tunnels. Hardly anyone sees his staff anymore, but I’ve heard whispers that they’ve become trapped inside of Thaddeus’s creations, flesh fused to the things they were piloting, almost like they’re becoming a  _ part _ of the machines. And then there are all the others...” There was a pause, in which Peter could hear his own pulse in his ears. “You’ve never seen a man attacked by an elephant, Mr. Walter. It’s a gruesome sight that none should ever have to witness.”

“An elephant?” Peter bemusedly asked. “What do elephants have to do with any of this?”

“That’s what all of his machines are,” Kahn explained. “They’re massive copper elephants. Every single one of them.”

“They’re all elephants?” he murmured, barely registering the words as he said them. “That’s so strange. I... I knew him when he built the first one. It was... Great Scott, it seems so long ago.”

“So you know something about the machine’s he’s built,” Arthur interjected. “Whatever information you have, it’s got to be better than ours. We hardly know anything about these things he’s created, and whatever you can tell us...”

“I don’t know what I’ll be able to tell you. I’m only familiar with his original prototype, and he made it... I can’t even be sure. It seems so long ago.” Peter paused for a second, feeling the sting of the distant memories. Things were brighter back then. The Cavalcadium still existed. Thaddeus was still his friend. Delilah was still alive. And... “It was never meant to be a weapon.”

“Then what was it supposed to be?”

The question didn’t even seem significant to Peter anymore. He hadn’t bothered to think of Thaddeus’s copper elephant in ages. Surely, whatever his former friend had spent his time constructing in Africa was vastly different from the machine that had unintentionally wrecked the Cavalcadium meeting hall.

“It was supposed to be a gift,” Peter said numbly. “He was building it for a girl we both fancied. It started out as a friendly competition, almost a sort of game, but things escalated, and after Delilah died, it only got worse.”

“Who’s Delilah?”

One twin lashed out with a violent kick, punching its tiny leg into the barriers that held it. Peter gasped in pain and doubled over. In a second, the automaton was at his side. He fixed a hand on his inventor’s arm and stared at him with a distressed expression. Peter sighed and mouthed a voiceless “it’s okay,” which didn’t seem to ease the machine at all, but he acceded to let go. The spot that the baby had struck was throbbing, sure to turn into a bruise later. 

“M-Mr. Walter? Are you alright?”

Right on cue, a few haggard coughs sputtered from his lungs. Peter cleared his throat and tried to compose himself. “I-I’m fine,” he stammered. “Delilah was... She was the girl we both had eyes for. Delilah was her name.”

“And you think her death is the inciting incident to all of this?”

“I know it was. It has to be,” Peter insisted. “She was the reason our fighting escalated. Thaddeus and I... we weren’t always in accord with one another, but we got along as well as we could. He was always excitable... and passionate, almost obsessive at times. But it was never so severe before her.”

Arthur Kahn hummed his acknowledgement, and for some time, the hallway was quiet, so much that Peter was beginning to think that the emissary had left. He wasn’t to be so fortunate as that, though. Peter felt a subtle stirring in his belly.  At first he thought the twins were adjusting their position again. It took a moment for the heat to register. His body had been warm for so long that he’d become almost numb to the feeling. Change in temperature sometimes didn’t hit him until mere moments before the pulses began.

“We could use this to our advantage,” Arthur Kahn said with absolutely no warning.

“You mean... use Delilah?” The furnace in Peter’s stomach was starting to burn. He tried to steady himself, but with each passing second, the fire grew stronger.  _ Why now? _ He begged the empty air for an answer.  _ Why, of all times, now? _

“Of course,” the emissary went on avidly. “No one told me about this. I-I’m sure Mr. Babclock must have known, but he never mentioned it to us.”

“He must have had a reason.” 

“Whatever it was, it’s no matter now. We know that Thaddeus Becile has a weakness. If we could manipulate him through that, perhaps we could get through to him, or at the very least, weaken him enough to end the attack.”

The first pulse struck, searing its path along Peter’s nerves like an electrical shock. He forced himself to speak through his gritted teeth. “I’m... n-not sure I would advise that. Thaddeus... doesn’t like... to be toyed with.”

“Then what  _ do _ you advise?”

At first, Peter couldn’t answer. He was panting, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts as the fire inside him raged. The next wave hit, and he could see his abdomen glow brighter as the spasm fried his nerves. He gasped at the feeling, pressed his hand to his mouth and bit down on it to silence himself only to be forced to pull it away as his raw throat baited him into another coughing fit.

“I need an answer, Mr. Walter,” Kahn remarked tersely.

That was the end of it. Limbs shaking, his fingers digging into the arms of the chair, struggling for breath and even more for composure, Peter gave up on civility. He knew that there had never been any real point in negotiating. Taggart had only been too stubborn to let go. The man knew that Peter was useless, and yet he had chased him anyway. What did it matter, whether or not Taggart had his help? He’d only be a burden. He could only make things worse. 

“Y-you... You want to know what I advise?” he growled. “I advise you to leave my presence right this second, Mr. Kahn.”

The emissary sputtered. “E-excuse me?”

No excuses were necessary. Not from Peter’s perspective, anyhow. He was in pain. His home had been invaded, and a man who wasn’t even his friend anymore was attempting to manipulate him into risking his life by hanging lurid stories over his head. There was no longer any justification in throwing his life away. Seven months before, it might have been feasible, but things had changed. It might have been sudden, unnatural and wholly unexpected, but these things didn’t change the truth. He’d found something to live for. 

There was barely any time left before the twins were born. They had to be kept safe. Until they were separated from him, it was down to him to be their ultimate defender. That was exactly who he intended to be.

“I... said...” Scalding energy surged through his body. He strained to speak. “I want you to leave this place. Never return. Go back to your employer and tell him that he has no right to go on harassing me like this. I will not fight his battles for him. I will not risk my life so he can keep his godforsaken corporation intact. I don’t give a blasted fuck what he thinks about my decision. I’ve made up my mind. I’m ill and all I want is to die in peace!”

As the last of his sentence passed his lips, he collapsed into another fit of coughing. The convulsions made the pain worse, amplifying it to twice its severity. Peter let slip a faint, agonized whimper. His automaton shakily set its hands in one place and then another on his head and shoulders, trying to figure out how to fix him, before finally giving up and holding the side of Peter’s face in his cold metal palm to meet his eyes. He wished he could tell his creation that he would be fine, that it would only last a few minutes and be over soon, but he was sure that the automaton wouldn’t believe him. In that second, speech was beyond his scope of ability. Peter could only weakly shake his head no. 

“Mr. Walter... If you’re as ill as you say you are, at least let me look at you.”

Arthur Kahn was still trying to negotiate. 

“There are illnesses that exist on the Nile that doctors of your country might not recognize. If I can identify your ailment, perhaps you could be healed. And if not, then... th-then I’ll tell Mr. Babclock everything. I’ll give him a description of you, let him know the severity of your plight, just as much as he’s told you of his own. We’ll never pester you over this again.”

There was no point in trying anymore. There never had been one in the first place.

“That’s a solemn oath. Please, sir. Just let me in.”

The conversation had nowhere else to go.

“Leave!” Peter cried out, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. His breath scraped at his throat, and in an instant his body was wracked with coughs. He wheezed, trying to catch his breath. A faint, anguished groan slipped past his lips. He bit back as much as he could. The automaton was close by, and he could feel his frightened green eyes staring at his creator from a few scant feet away. Peter felt a stab of pity for him, in the middle of everything else.  _ Awake for less than a day, and  _ this _ has to be one of the first things he sees. _

Out in the hallway, there was the soft sound of nervously shifting feet. Arthur Kahn sighed. The noise sounded distant and defeated. “If... if there’s nothing more to be said, Mr. Walter,” he murmured. Peter didn’t give him a response. A moment later, he heard the emissary’s footsteps turning away from the door and limping off down the hallway at a painfully slow pace.

Peter strained his neck to look at the automaton beside him. “Is he gone?” he weakly asked.

As quietly as his machinery would allow, his invention dashed to the door and carefully pulled it open, leaving only a spare sliver of space between the door and frame. He peered through, waited a moment, then turned back to his creator and nodded.

“P-please, if you could... move me back... where I was before.” Beads of sweat were surfacing on his overheated skin. His chest was heaving, left him barely able to speak, but he knew there was nothing else that the automaton would understand. His creation didn’t waste a second in complying. He dashed to Peter’s side and gently eased his arms around him. The engineer clung to his shoulder as he staggered across the floor, not letting go until he collapsed onto the bed. His body convulsed as it hit the mattress, and he let out a short, sharp cry.

The automaton pulled his hands back from his creator, startled, but he was back at it in a second. He crouched beside the bed and leaned close. Then, without warning, the automaton reached out and gently brushed his cool hand over Peter’s damp forehead. The memory of where he’d seen it before was vague. Perhaps Iris had done it once before, perhaps even Johona. Or his sister. Surely she’d learned the gesture somewhere.

Finally, his fevered brain recalled it. After he’d awakened the second automaton, after he had, essentially, granted him life. That was where he’d seen it. His creation was imitating  _ him _ . 

For a brief second, Peter felt his heart swell. The feeling was quickly crushed by another wave of agony that swept through his body. He couldn’t hold himself back this time. A moan tore free from his throat. His fingers dug into the bedspread, trying to ground himself, but nothing seemed to help. Slowly, a deep, chilling sense of anxiety began to set in. There was something different about this time. The pain was worse than it had ever been before. He felt he couldn’t move, could barely even breathe. The twins were thrashing madly inside of him, so much that he feared one misstep would break his skin open. The automaton was staring at him. He could see what was happening, the pulsing light and writhing shapes under his skin, and Peter couldn’t begin to imagine how much it terrified him. 

With a fast, desperate movement, he reached up and wrapped his hands around the automaton’s wrist. Their eyes met, and the brewing tears in Peter’s were beginning to spill over. “Find Iris,” he gasped. “B-bring her back here. I... I think something’s wrong.”

* * *

When Arthur Kahn reached the upstairs landing, Johona had been standing there and waiting for quite some time. Upon seeing him, she swaggered away from the banister where she was leaning and approached him. “How did it go?” she asked.

There was no malice in the question. Still, Arthur Kahn cast her a cursory glance, scoffed, then turned away and started down the stairs. It wasn’t the direct answer she’d been hoping for, but it told Johona just as much as she needed to know.

“I don’t know what you were expecting from him,” she went on. Kahn acted as if he didn’t acknowledge her, but Johona knew he was listening. She started after him, following the emissary down the stairs. “He’s been ill for a long time. You should know that fevers were involved, and when heat exposure is that extensive, it can cause all sorts of problems in the brain.”

Finally, Kahn spoke. “That does not give him the right to throw me out of here like a trespasser,” he spat.

Johona huffed. “So that’s how it went over, was it?”

“I wish that he at least could have been more direct,” Kahn continued. “He didn’t have to humor me and pretend to have an interest in negotiating. If it was always his intention to refuse to cooperate and shun my presence, he may as well have just gone ahead and said so.”

“But what would the use of that been?” she tossed back. “It didn’t get through to your employer beforehand. Truth be told, refusing your offer is exactly what Peter’s been trying to do all this time.”

“He was unreasonable, though. We seemed to be making some headway in our discussion, and all of a sudden...” Kahn threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of being at a total loss.

“I told you, Mr. Kahn. Fevers can do things to the human brain.”

“Fever or not, it won’t change the report I’ll have to give to Mr. Babclock. Good god, is he going to be disappointed when he hears about this exchange.”

As Kahn strode into the foyer and Johona followed on his heels, Iris was standing in the parlor nearby, tending to the floors with a scouring brush. Just like before, Rabbit was practically glued to her side. The two of them turned to look when they heard people approaching. Kahn glanced in their direction, and Johona noticed the subtle shiver that ran down his back.

* * *

“I certainly hope that you got whatever answers you came for,” Johona said.

Upon hearing her, Arthur Kahn paused in his path toward the front door. “There is a decent number that I’m leaving without,” he said bitterly, turning on his heel. “But, given the circumstance, I suppose there’s only so much conversation that one can get out of a man as sick as your Mr. Walter.”

The nurse shrugged. “I tried to warn you not to get your hopes up.

Arthur sighed. It didn’t even feel worth his while to dignify her comment with a response. He was already feeling the apprehension of having to return to Mr. Babclock with such a disappointing result. It no longer struck him as surprising, though. Given the state of the house and the weariness that had afflicted Mr. Walter’s haggard voice, he wouldn’t be around to fight much longer anyways. He reached for the doorknob to let himself out.

In the background, there was a subtle whirring of gears. He heard the sound of metal on stone tapping its way across the floor. “Rabbit, come back here,” Iris wheezed in her illness-worn voice.

“H-h-h-hey... M-Mr. Kahn?”

The voice was close behind him. It sounded pitchy and mechanical. A muscle in his neck twitched out of paranoia, and Arthur Kahn felt forced to turn around.

Johona was on her way out of the room. She stood at the base of the stairs, frozen in place, one foot perched on the first step. She was staring in Arthur’s direction, and for good reason. Standing behind him, only a few feet away, was Rabbit. Arthur couldn’t imagine how fast she must’ve had to move to reach him so quickly. She’d been across the room when he had last seen her. Regardless, she was stock-still now, her hands twined together in front of her and an imitation of a worried expression on her semblance of a face. Iris was still in the parlor, staring in their direction with a tired and despondent look on her face. 

“M-Mr. Kahn,” she went on. “A-Ar-Are you goin’ back to Africa now?”

“E-er...” he stammered. He’d never spoken to a living machine before. He wasn’t sure what to say. “I... I am. Of course. No reason for me to stay here anymore.”

“An’ are you g-g-g-gonna tell Mr. B-Babclock that Peter is sick?”

“So it would seem.” He let slip a nervous laugh. “It is my job, after all.”

“Okay. G-g-good,” she said, the joints in her neck squeaking as she nodded. 

“Pray tell, what’s so good about it?”

“Peter’s sick,” the machine explained. “H-he can’t do what Mr. B-B-Ba-Babclock wants him to. It would be r-r-real bad if he tried. Johona told me so.”

“Did she now?” Arthur cast a suspicious glare at Johona, who shook her head and raised her arms into another shrug.

“W-well... she tol’ me th-th-that...that if Peter went o-out to Africa, he might get hurt. A-an-and... I r-r-r-r-re-really like Peter. I-I don't want that to happen.”

“Oh.” The word came out as more of an aimless mumble. Arthur was dumbstruck. He didn’t feel there was very much else for him to say.

“S-s-so... you’re... g-g-g-g-gonna tell Mr. Babclock he can’t go, r-r-right?”

“Y-yes, of course I will,” Arthur assured her. For some reason, he felt like he needed to. There was something about the way she’d asked her questions... or maybe it was that frightened, worried look on her face. It wasn’t even a proper face yet, and still, somehow, it made Arthur’s chest ache with pity. 

“Good,” the automaton chirped. She was quiet for a moment, looking at the floor and twisting her hands together, metal scraping against metal. Then, suddenly, her eyes darted back to his face. “P-please, Mr. Kahn,” she murmured. “D-d-d-don’t hurt Peter. D-don’t take him away. I-I-I don’t want him to b-b-be gone. He’s r-r-r-really sick, I know, b-but... I need him ar-r-rou-round, too. There’s still a lot I d-d-don’t know, and if h-he’s not here to teach me, who will?”

For the first time that day, Arthur had absolutely no responses to give. He stood and stared at the automaton, absolutely dumbfounded. Johona had told him everything he had needed to know. Rabbit was little more than a week old. She couldn’t have possibly grasped what was going on around her.  _ Does she even understand the implications of what she’s saying? _ he wondered. He wanted to doubt that she did. There was something in the way she spoke, though. That look on her face. Something about all of it was just so undeniably... human.

“Good evening, Mr. Kahn,” Johona said firmly, still standing at the base of the stairs. The sharp look in her eyes urged him to get on with it.

Arthur took one last look at the automaton, and the withered maid standing in the adjoining room. A cold, sinking feeling settled in his core. He sighed once more, and turned the doorknob in his hand and pulled the door open.

“Good evening, Johona,” he hastily replied before rushing out the door and into the night towards his waiting cab.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now aren't we glad that's over.  
> I hope that at least SOME of you will react to this.  
> *squints at cicada_s*  
> Okay that's enough callouts for one night. I have a day tomorrow, and I need to go the fuck to sleep.  
> Let's hope I dream of musical lesbians.  
> See you next chapter.


	22. In The Safer Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally post on nights that i have to get up early the following morning, but when I do, I'm sleep deprived anyway so does it even matter?  
> My life pales in comparison to what it was at the time of my last update, so there's nothing to say here. only the usual thank yous and plugs. You've seen them all before.  
> Also a good friend of mine recently revived my passion for roleplaying and now has me deeply invested in an extremely long-term improv session and it's ruining me. Someone please send help. Or mend me so I'm no longer a human being and I can just exist permanently as a character in a story. That would be the best help anyone could offer.  
> CONTENT WARNING FOR EXTREME PAIN, MEDICAL JARGON AND VISIONS OF GHOSTS.  
> Well, that's all I have. I'm especially empty today.  
> Have fun, kiddos.

 

Five minutes after Arthur Kahn’s cab disappeared from the front walk of the manor, Iris finally felt it was safe to pull her surgical mask off of her face. She’d been wearing it for the entire day, and in that span of time, the thing had become dreadfully hot and sticky from her breath. Her nose and mouth freed from their cotton prison, she took a deep, grateful breath of fresh air. Its cool presence was a soothing remedy to her acid-worn throat. Finally feeling she could speak again, she turned to Rabbit. “Where did all of that come from?” she asked.

The automaton shrugged. “I was j-j-j-just tellin’ the truth,” she mumbled. Her gaze dropped to the ground, her skeletal face pulled into a guilty expression. “I know you t-t-t-told me not to mention anythin’ about P-Peter being sick, b-but... b-b-b-but...”

“I know what I told you, Rabbit,” Iris calmly said. “But I do need to know why you said what you did.”

“I w-wanted to make sure he d-d-didn’t hurt Peter. I want him to b-be okay. D-d-don’t you?”

“Oh.” Across the room, Johona was watching them. She dramatically placed a hand over her heart. “If this isn’t the most precious thing I’ve seen today.”

Iris glanced over at the nurse and rolled her eyes. “Of course I want him to be okay.”

“E-even though I d-d-didn’t do what you s-said,” Rabbit murmured almost sadly. Suddenly, she looked up, worry reflected in her glass eyes. “D-d-does this mean that now I d-don’t get to f-f-f-f-find out what’s goin’ on w-with Peter?”

“What?” Johona looked at Iris and raised her eyebrows in suspicion.

Iris glanced over at her and tried to ignore the guilt pecking at the back of her mind. “I’m sorry, Johona. She wouldn’t stop asking. I-I promised her that if she was good and stayed quiet while Mr. Kahn was here...”

“Well, he’s gone now,” the nurse mused. “I suppose, so long as she doesn’t leave the manor, there’s no harm in her knowing.”

“A-are you gonna tell me?” Rabbit pressed onward.

“I...” Another glance at Johona earned Iris an approving nod. With a sigh, she turned back to Rabbit. “I suppose. A promise is a promise.”

For a moment, Rabbit looked delighted. Before Iris could get another word past her lips, the second automaton scampered across the second-floor landing and stumbled down the stairs. His feet hit the foyer floor with a loud, metallic _clank_ , and he immediately sprinted towards Iris.

She turned to face the oncoming machine. He seemed panicked. All of a sudden, her heart was beating faster. He was supposed to be with Peter. “What is it?” she asked, her voice quavering.

As was his habit, the silver automaton didn’t say a word in response. He set his long, slender fingers around Iris’s sleeve and tugged her towards the stairs.

She hesitated, then asked, “Is it Peter?”

The automaton nodded, and that was all that she needed to know. She turned back to Rabbit. “I have to go tend to this.”

The automaton’s eyes flashed with excitement. “S-s-som-somethin’s going on with Peter?” she stammered.

“It’s what your brother just said,” Johona chimed in. “What if something’s seriously wrong?” she then said to Iris. “Maybe I should be the one to deal with this.”

The second automaton shook his head and tugged at Iris’s sleeve again. The maid looked to him and sighed. “I don’t know. I’m the one that he asked for.”

“If that’s the way it is,” the nurse resignedly said. “But if it’s something serious, bring me straight in.”

“I will.”

“H-hey Iris, can I go with you?”

Iris turned back to Rabbit. “I-I don’t think that now would be a good time.”

“Why not?” the machine protested. “Y-you were gonna tell me anyway. Can’t I come?”

“I’m afraid it’s a little too soon. I don’t want you to have to see anything you don’t yet understand.”

“B-but...”

“I’ll tell you as soon as I can. Okay?”

Rabbit’s gears hummed as her brother pulled at Iris again. She gave in and let him tow her toward the stairs before she could get an answer out of his curious sister. The automaton’s long legs carried him onward at a startling pace. Iris had to nearly sprint to keep up and was left huffing for breath by the time she reached Peter’s bedroom door. She leaned against the wall, thankful she hadn’t worn her corset that day, before gently knocking on the door. “Peter?” she called out.

“I-Iris?” a weakened voice whimpered from inside.

She didn’t bother asking permission to come in. The hinges of the door creaked as Iris intrepidly pushed past it and swept into the room, her eyes darting about in a frenzy to find her employer. He was lying on the bed, curled up on his side, one arm wrapped tightly around his midriff, the other tense at his side, fingers digging savagely into the bedspread. He weakly raised his head and turned his face to her. His eyes were like cue balls, huge and glossy, inflamed and rimmed with blue. She watched his chest heave with every shallow, labored breath he took, and he shuddered when he saw her. In a split second, Iris was crouched at his side, brushing his hair back from his sweat-drenched forehead.

“Oh, god,” she murmured shakily. “Peter. W-what happened?”

“I... I don’t know,” he choked. “I... was trying to... f-finish the conversation...”

He gasped, and the sentence fell dead before he could finish it. The sound morphed into an agonized moan. Iris’s gaze flicked instinctively down. His stomach bulged grotesquely with the frenzied movement of the restless twins, the light inside pulsing gently, brighter than Iris had ever seen it before.

“I-It’s the twins,” he stammered. “It’s... worse than ever. I... d-don’t know... what’s happening, but they’re...”

“Do you think that it’s time?”

Peter automatically shook his head. “N-no, it’s too soon. Jo said... s-said I still have... _fucking hell_!” His body convulsed, his face contorted into a mask of pain. Tears squeezed free from the corners of his eyes. Iris grabbed his hand and squeezed it as hard as she could to reassure him that she was there. That was enough to get him to open his eyes and look at her again. He stared at her, wheezing.

“I’m getting Johona,” she told him. “I’ll be back in just a minute. She’ll know what to do.”

He gave her a feeble nod. There was no reason Iris could see to force him to speak anymore. She squeezed his hand one last time before turning on a heel and sprinting back to the foyer, even faster than she had when Rabbit’s brother had led her away from that very place. The machine followed her, and she made no move to stop him. Johona was in the kitchen, starting dinner and supervising Rabbit, when Iris found her and begged that she come upstairs and see Peter. The nurse dropped everything that second and told Rabbit to look after her brother while they were gone. She always seemed more apt to behave herself when he was around anyway.

Peter hadn’t moved by the time they returned to his room. Johona took one look at him and inhaled sharply through her teeth. “Roll him onto his back,” she commanded. “I need to take a better look at him.”

Iris was hesitant to comply. Peter was watching the both of them with raw, hazy eyes. She approached him carefully, gently telling him, “I’m going to have to move you a little.”

“Okay,” he breathed in a raspy reply.

She tried reposition him as gently as possible, taking him by the shoulders and pushing him towards the center of the bed, but Johona wasn’t nearly as tactful. He let out a short, sharp cry as his body lurched out of its posture, then fell limp with his arms splayed at his sides and legs stretched out before him. His chest continued to heave, and he groaned, leaning his forehead against Iris’s palm.

In that moment, Iris felt helpless. “He’s in so much pain,” she said despondently.

“I know, I know,” Johona needlessly replied. “I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can do to lessen it.” She hovered one hand experimentally over her friend’s pulsating belly, then cursed and quickly pulled it back. “Normally applying heat calms down premature contractions, but he already feels like the surface of the sun.”

“Pre... what?”

“I can’t be sure that’s the real cause of his pain,” she dismally went on. “There’s so little we know as it is. And I’m almost sure that muscle contractions aren’t the source of it.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“The only option we have is to try and lessen the pain. Go grab as many towels as you can find and fill a basin with ice. We should start by trying to lower his body temperature. Otherwise his brain will get cooked.”

“R-right.” Iris followed the orders as fast as humanly possible. She was back in the room in less than a minute, a mixing bowl filled with ice under one arm and a handful of dishtowels draped over the other. Johona piled up the ice in the center of each cloth, folded it into a compress and laid it in some strategic location against her friend’s burning skin.

“Now, if you could run to the kitchen and fill a cup with some more chips from the icebox? Sometimes hydration takes the edge off of these. If anything it’ll help cut down his fever.”

Again, Iris was fast to follow her directions. She took up her position beside Peter while Johona went about squeezing out a few of the now almost-steaming cloths and filling them with fresh ice. Her fingers ran through his damp hair, and his eyes cracked open halfway to stare blankly at the ceiling. “Iris?” he whispered.

“It’s me,” she softly replied. “Here, take this.” Iris dipped her fingers into the cup and picked up a few ice chips. She brought them to Peter’s mouth and let a few melting drops fall on his lips before gently parting them with her fingertip and dropping them onto his tongue.

He swallowed the ice gratefully. “What is it for?” he absently asked.

“We’re trying to cool you down. You’re absolutely burning up.”

“I... feel it.” Peter wheezed for a few seconds before the weak, haggard noise crescendoed suddenly into a keening, anguished moan. “It hurts,” he whimpered, starting to sob. “ Oh, god, it hurts so much.”

“I know,” Iris murmured, bringing her face close to his. “I know it does.”

Time seemed to lose its meaning and Iris knelt by Peter’s bed, feeding him ice chips and trying her best to reassure him. Nothing seemed to help, though. The man’s fevered skin melted the ice compresses nearly as fast as Johona could replace them, forcing her to go out in search of more towels and refill the ice bowl twice. Feeding him ice chips didn’t do a thing, either. In spite of their efforts, with each passing second, Peter seemed to be drifting away, losing more and more of himself to the pain that wracked his body.

Then, all of a sudden, his eyes flew open. “Delilah,” he murmured.

Iris’s second cup of ice was empty. “What?” she asked.

“She’s here. Delilah. She knows.”

“Peter, what are you saying?”

Slowly, the engineer turned his head and their gazes locked. His hand found hers and wrapped tightly around it. “Delilah knows, Iris,” he said, slowly, methodically, clearer than he had been not a minute before. “She knows.”

He collapsed into the pillows, then his eyes rolled back and finally fell shut.

Everything seemed to stop. Iris felt like a plaster statue, crouched motionless at her employer’s side while he lay before her, just as still. For a second, the world seemed to have ceased to turn. Her lips trembled, and she felt a lump welling up in her throat. “Peter?” she choked out. Then again, louder this time. “Peter?!”

“Don’t panic. He isn’t dead,” Johona cut in. “He’s fainted, that’s all. The pain made him fall unconscious.”

Somehow, that answer didn’t make Iris feel very much better. She glanced up at Johona, whose face betrayed more worry than her words did, before turning back to her employer’s face. She ran her fingers through his hair once more before glancing at his belly, which still pulsed and roiled from the twins writhing below its surface. Iris wanted more than anything to calm them, but having burned her hand more than once, she knew it was out of the question. A sharp blade of guilt pierced her chest, and she found herself at an absolute loss. “What happens now?” she absent-mindedly asked.

“We wait,” Johona replied. “We keep trying to cool him down, and hopefully, he’ll wake up before long.”

“Okay.” Iris’s voice sounded just as listless as she felt.

“I have to change out the compress cloths again. I’ll get you some ice chips while I’m at it.”

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me for a job that you’re doing, Iris.”

With that, Johona disappeared from the room, leaving the maid alone with her employer. She hovered over him, feeling like a looming ghost, a transparent specter who only ever watches, never acts or intervenes. She wished that she could have. She wished that she could have taken his pain away. She could have borne it herself. She would have done it gladly, if the twins had been hers to carry.

But she couldn’t, and they weren’t. Life wasn’t nearly that easy, and she wasn’t so well equipped to do such things anymore.

There was only the silence in the room between them. At least he wasn’t crying anymore. At least, as long as he was asleep, he wouldn’t feel any of the pain.

Her fingers had never untangled themselves from his hair. They had stayed, as if of their own volition, and even in realizing this, she made no effort to move them. That would feel too much like abandoning him. Iris wouldn’t dare do that. Not to him. She loved him far too much.

Without thinking, Iris brushed Peter’s hair away from his face and lowered her own close to his. Gently, she pressed her lips to his dripping forehead. The fleeting kiss left her lips stained faintly blue, and she quickly swept the stain away. If he remembered when he awoke, she hoped he would understand. A part of her hoped he wouldn’t do either. She knew now that it was the weak, shameful side of herself. It was the part that thought she deserved to be punished, that her life and purpose didn’t merit love or happiness or other simple human needs that weren’t something to be sold or bought. But everything else in her wanted him to know. For everything he’d done, he deserved the truth. He was a scientist, with a need to study and understand. If he didn’t know already, she hoped he would now. So she didn’t berate herself. She didn’t regret what she’d done. Love shut down those broken-down pieces of her soul like outdated machinery.

Instead, she laid her head down next to his and hoped for the best.

* * *

Peter awoke to the feeling of wet clothes clinging to his skin and a cold, heavy object resting on his forehead. As he slowly surfaced from the oblivion in his mind, the weight shifted, sticking to one side of his face and then the other. He pried his eyes open to see that the world outside his window had gone dark and no one had drawn the curtains. He shifted his heavy, leaden limbs to try and sit up.

Instantly, there was a hand on his chest, gently pushing him back down to the pillows. “Don’t move,” Iris said softly. “You might not have your coordination back.”

There seemed nothing for Peter to do but comply. He sighed and sank back into the mattress. His vision focused, and he saw his maid sitting next to him on the edge of the mattress. Her arm was outstretched over him, following the cold feeling on his skin. She was dabbing at his face with a cold, damp cloth, he realized. That was why he was drenched. Or had he really been sweating that much? He couldn’t seem to remember a single thing.

“How do you feel?” Iris asked.

“Neutral,” he replied. “Confused, more than anything else.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Not very much.” Once again, he glanced over at the darkened window. “How long was I out?”

“Nearly an hour. I don’t know how precise a guess that is, since you fainted quite a while ago. The contractions didn’t stop for quite a while afterward.”

“The what?”

Iris nervously chewed at her lip and looked off in the distance. “Jo didn’t directly say that was what they were, but she didn’t know what else to call them.”

“Oh,” was the only response that Peter could find. He lay still for a while, letting Iris dab at his face with the cold cloth. He felt he had nothing to say. Thankfully, Iris was the one who chose to fill the silence.

“What do you remember?” she asked. He felt her hand shaking slightly as it pressed the cloth to his skin.

Peter had to think for a moment. His memory was scrambled, and there was already so little from the last hour that he could grasp. “Pain,” he mumbled without any confidence. “Heat. Both those things, absolutely enveloping me. My vision getting blurry. Losing feeling in my limbs. Then you were there, and everything else after that... it all just turns into a great big nothingness.”

Iris said nothing for a while, as if she were waiting for him to say more. When nothing more came, she said, “Whatever it was that caused it, it seems to have ended.”

“Are you sure that it took an hour before the... er... whatever it was, before it was over?”

“I-I was only estimating,” Iris replied, meeting his eyes with a nervous glance.

“I know, but even if it was close to that...” He exhaled heavily. “I’ve never seen an episode last this long before.”

“I’m sure they’ve never been this severe, either.” The maid paused for a second before asking, “You don’t think this means something is wrong?”

“My situation is already wrong as it is,” Peter sardonically replied. “In all honesty, I have no blasted clue what any of it really means.” The burning. The glow. How the twins might come into the world, if they were to do so at all. “I do have some theories that I need to discuss with Johona, though.”

“What might those be? I-if you wouldn’t mind sharing.”

The light grew brighter every time that radioactive heat burned his stomach from the inside out. His skin was translucent. In the dark, he could almost see them moving inside of him. “I’d prefer not to. I don’t want to alarm you. I’ve hardly any proof to substantiate them, anyhow.”

“Alright. I’ll listen if you ever feel I should know,” was Iris’s simple, cheery reply. The quiet lingered for a while longer before she spoke up again, this time with an audible hesitation in her voice. “P-Peter, I feel like I should tell you...”

Peter felt a sudden pang of concern. “Tell me what?”

“Well... I, um... Right before you fainted, you... y-you said some things that I didn’t quite understand.”

“I was talking?” That fact surprised him, quite possibly more than anything else had. “What did I say?”

“Y-you don’t remember?”

“Iris, I don’t even remember at what point I _stopped_ remembering.”

“Oh.” The cloth stilled on Peter’s brow while Iris gathered her thoughts. “Y-you said... it was something about Delilah,” she explained. “You said... you said that she was here, and that she knows something.”

“I said Delilah was here?” he mused, his brow furrowing. “She couldn’t have been. Why would I say something like that?”

“I can’t begin to guess. For... for just a moment, I thought that meant you were...”

Iris didn’t need to finish her thought. Peter already knew what she meant, and maybe, in the midst of the rest of it, he’d been thinking the same thing. “Well, I didn’t. I’m right here, and so are they,” he assured her. He smiled and glanced down at his belly. The pain was gone now, and according to Iris, the pulsing had stopped some time before. Iris smiled back at him and, as was her custom now, gently stroked her hand over the warm, faintly glowing swell. Peter felt one of the twins push back against her hand.

“Rabbit mentioned you,” she said absently, seemingly mesmerized by the feeling of his stomach under her palm. “When Mr. Kahn was here.”

“Was she supposed to?”

“No. In fact, I asked her not to, but... I can’t explain it. It was her thought process, and there’s still so much about her that we have yet to learn, but for whatever reason she felt it imperative to talk to Mr. Kahn about you. And, somehow, she made it work.”

“What did she say to him?”

“Only as much as we told her. That you were sick, and that you shouldn’t be traveling in your condition, otherwise something bad might happen. And then... she started telling him about how worried she was for you. She said she doesn’t want you to be hurt, and that she needs you around to teach her about the world.” Iris paused for a moment, her hand going still. A small line appeared between her eyebrows. “She’s becoming suspicious, you know.”

“Suspicious of what?” he asked. “She can’t possibly have any idea what’s really going on.”

“Maybe not, but she’s started to think that we’re not telling her the whole truth about you.” Another pause, and Iris drew a shaky breath. “I think we should tell her.”

“Why? What would it do to help any of us?”

“It might not be all that helpful, but it would make her feel better, at least.”

Peter sighed and went silent, spending a minute deep in thought. “What kind of risk would we be running in telling her?”

“I don’t think she’ll be leaving the manor anytime soon, so there’s no one else that she could tell. And maybe, if we can get it into her head exactly what the nature of our situation is, she’ll be able to keep your secret.”

“We have no idea how far her abilities go, Iris. Or her ineptitudes, for that matter.”

“But we’ll never know until we test them,” she said, sounding insistent all of a sudden. She looked earnestly at Peter, her face drawn with concern, though for what he couldn’t be sure. “She already knows that something isn’t right. If we told her the truth, maybe we could make her understand.”

“Maybe,” Peter resignedly said. “Whatever the result, she can’t do us very much harm if she isn’t leaving the manor.” He tried to leave it at that, but the nervous tightness in his core only twisted itself further. He moved his hand to overlap Iris’s. She went still and looked at him, seeming bewildered. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I... I can’t explain why, but I’m so apprehensive.”

“I can imagine why you would be,” Iris replied.

Somehow that was just what Peter needed to ease the tension in his chest. He sighed again, his lungs grateful for the ability to fill with air again. Lazily he let his fingers wander over the warm, worn skin on the back of Iris’s hand. They began to trace a path up over her wrist as if of their own accord. He watched her shoulders shudder faintly from the contact, and for a brief second, their eyes met. Some kind of communication passed between them, though not a single word was spoken, and Iris was honored to oblige her employer’s silent request. The maid kicked her shoes off, brought her legs up onto the bed and overlapped them with Peter’s. Carefully, she lowered her body next to his, letting her head down last and resting it on the edge of his ribs, pressing her cheek against his belly where it swelled out from the rest of him. She brought her arm up around it, softly running her hand over the taut fabric of his shirt, warmed by his skin underneath. He wound his arms around her in return, pulling her close to his side. They lay there, neither one of them speaking, for what felt like an eternity. As Peter absent-mindedly let his fingers weave into Iris’s hair, he wished it could have really been an eternity. In all that time he might have been able to keep his head from spinning and make his heart stop beating so fast. Panic, he was sure. Pure panic. But Iris was nearly always the one to set him at ease. So why did he feel like this now, of all times?

“You aren’t just my maid anymore,” he thoughtlessly murmured, as if half-asleep. “Out of everything, that’s one thing that I’m sure of.”

“Then what am I?” Iris asked, the words barely more than a whisper.

“More than that. I don’t think I could find a name for it if I spent a thousand years trying. But you’re so much more than a maid.”

* * *

Johona was waiting with the automatons in the kitchen. Though it hadn’t been her shift that day, she had already started dinner. The automatons were off in the corner by the wood-burning stove. Rabbit had made another new discovery, heat, and found that her copper hands made excellent conductors. Now she was placing her hands on the scalding metal exterior and showing her brother how if she left them for long enough, she could leave marks in the wallpaper with her fingers.

When Peter approached with Iris in tow, his friend sensed their presence before either of them said a word. She whirled around, looking startled, then quickly glanced sideways at Rabbit and her ambitious little work of art all over the wall. “Oh for the love of god,” she hissed, then turned to Peter. “I swear I didn’t know she was doing that. I thought, since she and her brother were being quiet... goddammit. I hope the wallpaper isn’t much of an issue.”

“It isn’t,” Peter assured her. “The stuff’s ages old, and I probably should have replaced it a while ago. I would _appreciate it_ , though,” he added, raising his voice slightly and glaring at Rabbit, “if the wood underneath didn’t get damaged.”

The copper automaton froze. “B-but look. I-It’s so p-p-pretty,” she cooed, leaving another smoldering print on the wall.

“Will it still be pretty when you’re spackling the dents you left in the wall?”

“W-w-w-w-well... they’ll be gone then, so...” she mumbled, her eyes shamefully downcast. “I-I’m sorry, Peter.” She stayed wilted for short while, but it didn’t last. Mere seconds later, she was upright and grinning again. She grabbed her silent brother by the arm and pulled him away from the stove.

“Have you talked to Peter yet?” Johona asked Iris. “About what we discussed?”

“I have,” the maid replied.

Johona nodded, then turned to Peter. “And what have you decided?”

The engineer set his jaw and took a deep breath. As an answer, he turned to Iris and made a single calm request. “Iris, would you mind separating Rabbit from her brother for a while? There’s something we need to talk about with her.”

At the mention of her name, the copper automaton’s head spun around to face her creator. Iris approached and took the second automaton by the arm and, speaking softly to him, led him out into the corridor. Now alone, Rabbit could barely contain herself. Her eyes gleamed with excitement, and her face took on a delighted expression. She bounced gently on her toes, gears clicking as her heels rose and lowered. She didn’t say a word, but her physicality spoke for her well enough.

An anticipatory silence pervaded the room while Peter’s creation excitedly awaited his next words. He took another breath, as if in preparation to speak, but words seemed slippery in his grasp. Even after having known for so long, it was still so difficult to put the truth into words. He’d only done it once, and Johona had done it the other time, with considerably more ease than how he had handled it. Before he said anything else, though, he at least had to start. “Rabbit,” he began, “there’s... there’s something I think you should know.”

Rabbit’s eyes lit up, and her smile would have widened, if it were even possible by then. “Okay,” she lilted, her voice sounding almost like a little song.

“I-I’ve...” All of a sudden his throat had tightened and he found himself hesitating, just like he had months before when he was forced to make the exact same confession to someone else. “I’ve heard from Iris that you’re concerned about the state that I’m in. She told me that you’re starting to suspect that we aren’t telling you everything about what’s been going on in this house.”

Rabbit nodded, still watching him intently. He could practically hear the gears in her head grinding with anticipation. “Are you?” she asked with an almost childish curiosity.

Peter hesitated before he shakily replied, “No. I’m afraid we aren’t. You see, Rabbit, there’s... um... more to this situation than we’ve been telling you.”

“And y-y-yo-you’re telling me n-now?”

“That’s the intention,” Johona said, casting a look at her friend that seemed to say _Get on with it_.

“Right. It is,” Peter echoed. Still, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to make himself speak plainly. “Rabbit, there’s... there are going to be a few new additions to the house.”

“I-is one of them g-g-gonna be m-my other brother in the lab?”

“W-well, yes, he’ll be one of them, but there are a few, um... _others_ that will be arriving as well. Very soon, actually.”

“In around eight weeks, if everything goes well,” Johona chimed in.

Rabbit quizzically cocked her head to the side. “W-what are they gonna b-b-be?”

“They’re going to be humans. Like us,” Peter explained. “Well, presumably, they will be,” he added as an afterthought. “There’ll be two of them.”

“Two m-more of you?”

“Not exactly. They’ll, um... they’ll be a lot smaller. And much more delicate. And they won’t be able to speak or walk around like I can.”

“I don’t get it,” Rabbit mused. “H-how can they be human if they’re n-n-not like you? I th-thought all humans were l-li-li-like you.”

“They aren’t. Not all of them. The humans you’ll be seeing soon will be the way they are because they’re younger than me and Johona and Iris. They’re newer.”

“Like my brother?”

“Sort of.”

“Where are they coming from?”

In that moment, Peter’s breath caught in his throat and he found it impossible to speak any further. This was it, the part that he could never seem to bring himself to speak of to anyone who didn’t already know. He cast a panicked glance at Johona, silently begging her for help. She took notice, nodded and responded accordingly. “What Peter’s trying to say,” she elaborated, “is that he’s currently in the process of making those humans himself.”

“Y-you are?” Rabbit turned her inquisitive stare to her creator. “B-b-but I haven’t seen any humans in the lab. W-where are you m-ma-makin’ em?”

“Right now, they’re inside of him,” his friend went on. “Essentially, what’s happening is that he’s creating them from pieces of himself. Currently they’re a part of him, and they have to stay that way until they’re strong enough to live in the outside world, like the rest of us.”

“Th-the tiny h-h-humans are... i-in you?” Rabbit’s eyes were huge and glassy with some mix between horror and fascination. “W-w-where are you k-keepin’ them?”

“That was probably the most obvious part of it,” Johona said, a smile spreading across her face as she turned to rub her hand over his obviously enlarged belly. Peter shivered, suddenly struck by insecurity, but he fought the feeling away for Rabbit’s sake.

The automaton’s eyes flicked down from his face and focused on his midsection. Their lenses were glassy, her face having gone bewilderedly blank from the sudden revelation. “S-so... th-th-th-tha-that’s why...” she murmured. She glanced back up at his face. “C-c-can I touch it?”

Johona glanced over at him, begging the same question. Peter hesitated a moment before replying, “If you’re very careful. And let me guide your hand.”

Rabbit nodded and cautiously approached, moving as slowly as her machinery would permit. Peter closed the distance between them himself and gently took her hand in his. The structure was sharp and skeletal, a deconstruction of what it was intended to be, but he firmly believed Rabbit was capable of being gentle. He felt it shaking slightly and wondered why it did, since a thing like herself, made of sprockets and wires and sheets of metal, shouldn’t have been prone to such a human instability, but remembered that there was still a great deal he didn’t know about her. Moving her hand like a puppet, he gently pressed her plated metal palm against his abdomen.

She sat stock-still for a second, as if she were waiting to be pulled more, but Peter’s hands only kept hers steady. Delicately, she moved her hand over the curve, staring at her creator’s body with wide, awestruck eyes. Then a cog in her metacarpal joints slipped, her thumb pushed a little more into the give of Peter’s skin, and one of the twins pushed back, making the engineer gasp a little in surprise. Rabbit shrieked and reeled back, tearing her hand out of her creator’s grasp. He winced as the bare machinery of her hand scraped across his skin, leaving a piercing sting in its wake. “W-w-w-w-ha-w-wha-what was that?” she stuttered. “I-I’ve s-s-s-s-seen that happen! I’ve seen it b-b-be-before!”

He felt the distinctive hot, damp feeling of blood welling up in the lines of his palm, but he kept his hand closed. That wasn’t something that Rabbit needed to see at the moment. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” Peter reassured her. “Nothing bad. One of them just moved, that’s all.”

That didn’t seem to calm Rabbit very much. “B-but... doesn’t that hurt?”

He shook his head. “No. Not very much.”

“O-okay. Good.” Rabbit sat quietly, just a moment, gears grinding in her head while she tried to process all the information. “Y-y’know... Peter...” she said quietly, “I-I did already know something was ha-happening that you weren’t t-t-telling me about.”

“That was what Iris told me.”

“B-but... if all this time, you were jus’ m-m-makin’ a couple of l-little humans, w-w-what was so bad about me knowing?”

Peter sighed. “I thought you might ask me this question,” he said. “This might be the hardest part of all to explain. You see, I... I’m not supposed to be like this.”

Rabbit cocked her head. “Why?”

“Um... well, there’s... The thing is, humans are made up of different parts,” he began. “They’re all built differently.”

“Like me an’ my brother?”

“Sort of. Now, some humans have parts that are meant to do hold and build smaller humans, and some don’t. Generally, humans like Johona or Iris would have those parts, and people like me wouldn’t.”

“I don’t get it,” Rabbit interrupted. “What’s d-d-different about Iris and Johona?”

“Basically, at the most generalized level, humans fall into two categories based on the parts they were born with,” Johona put in. “Things can deviate from then on, but generally there are certain things that a human can or can’t do based on what pieces they originally have. For instance, Iris and I are called _females_ . We’re genetically meant to do what Peter is doing, because we were born with the right parts. Peter, on the other hand, is a _male_ , which means he was born with different parts that don’t do the same thing.”

“B-but if you d-don’t got the right parts, how are you m-m-making the humans?”

“None of us have an answer for that,” Peter grimly replied. “But you understand what’s wrong with the situation now, don’t you? What we just told you, and the things you’ve seen regarding me... none of it is supposed to be happening.”

“Th-that just means you’re s-s-sp-special, Peter. You can do things other m-m-males can’t. I don’t get w-what’s so bad ‘bout that.”

Her words struck Peter directly in the heart and pulled on its strings. Involuntarily, he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He looked earnestly at her, sighed and cupped one hand around her absent cheek. “You’re far too precious for this world, Rabbit.”

The automaton didn’t seem to understand what he said, but she smiled back at him, which had to mean something. “Now that I know w-what’s going on,” she softly asked, “d-do-does this mean I can’t tell my brother?”

“I’m afraid not,” Peter replied. “He’s only been awake for a little over a day. He’s nowhere near ready to know the truth, and it would be difficult for us to make him understand. We’ll have to hold off on telling him, at least until he can speak.”

Rabbit nodded and glanced away, seeming disappointed. “C-c-can I still t-tell him th-that you’re not getting hurt? I th-thi-think he worries a lot.”

“If you think that would help.”

“I won’t s-s-s-say anythin’ about the l-little humans,” she proudly declared. “N-not to nobody.”

“If there’s anything else you want to know,” Johona chimed in, “don’t hesitate to ask any of us. But you should consider that there’s a lot we ourselves don’t know about it, so don’t expect a definite answer for everything.”

“I won’t,” Rabbit promised. “I’ll t-try to understand as m-m-much as I c-can. I w-w-wanna help Peter. Th-the little humans in him, t-too.”

Peter smiled at his creation and placed an affectionate hand on her shoulder. “That’s my girl,” he said, feeling a glow of pride in his chest.

Suddenly the automaton’s face pulled into a look of confusion. Her head cocked to the side and she perplexedly asked, “M-my what?”

It took a moment for the realization to sink in. It did so suddenly and jarringly, and Peter found himself wondering, _Does Rabbit not realize she’s a girl?_ For the briefest of seconds, he was ready to launch into yet another round of explanations, this time about the outward presentations of what they’d just discussed, and how all of that would factor into the person that Rabbit would become. It didn’t take long for him to decide against it. Explaining the concept of sexes to her was an endeavor enough. And that had been in terms of humans. It wouldn’t make much sense to her, he figured, if he tried to explain something so complicated to her when she, a machine, had no biological proof of being what Peter had intended when he first built her.

“Nothing,” he finally said, shrugging it off. Surprisingly, the answer was one that Rabbit was perfectly willing to accept.

* * *

After everything that had happened that day, Peter was glad to retreat to his room at the end of it. Rabbit and her brother had to be watched for the first few hours of the night. Peter had been theorizing for some time how he could power them down in future nights so he and everyone else could get solid hours of sleep again. He wondered if temporarily disconnecting their wires from their cores would work, but worried as well about the side effects in might have on their behavior and memory. Rabbit had come especially far since her awakening, and he was afraid to risk losing her progress.

Staying up in shifts every single night wasn’t going extremely well. They’d been obligated to do it since the day Rabbit was awakened, and Johona had taken no reservations in informing Peter all about the ill effects of sleep deprivation in the late stages of pregnancy. Peter could admit to himself that he’d been feeling the fatigue setting in. The twins seemed to be sapping his strength more than ever lately, and with the state he was in, he couldn’t manage to sit still for more than a few minutes without falling asleep. The phenomenon could cause problems at times, especially those when he was supposed to be keeping watch over his creations.

“Hey, P-Peter, are you sleepin’?”

Peter’s eyelids snapped open at the sound of Rabbit’s shrill, chipper voice. It was a shock to his system, especially the notion that it was possible for someone to sound so energetic at such a late hour. He rubbed at his bleary eyes, brushed his hair back from his face and finally landed his gaze on the face of his creation, who was crouched beside the fainting couch where he sat. “I’m trying not to,” he mumbled in reply. “I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you two. Can’t let you start burning holes in the wallpaper again.”

Rabbit giggled, a little embarrassed. “I’m n-n-not gonna b-burn-urn-urn the wallpaper. I already s-said I’d stop,” she assured him. “A-are you sure you shouldn’t be s-sleeping? You look r-r-r-reeeeally sleepy.”

“I suppose I am, but I’ve got more important things to do at the moment. Speaking of that, your brother hasn’t gone off anywhere, had he?”

“He’s by the window. Been s-s-sit-sittin’ like that for a l-lo-long time.”

Peter glanced down the length of the parlor to see that what Rabbit said was indeed true. His second creation was perched before the tall window. The gauze sheet covering the glass had been torn away, leaving Peter no clue of which one of them had done it and the outside world clear for them all to see. There weren’t many streetlights in the area where Peter lived, so there was hardly anything at all to be seen on the ground. That didn’t seem to be what the automaton was focused on anyway. From where he sat, Peter could see that his chin was turned up, his glass green eyes fixed on the star-speckled expanse that hovered over the darkened grounds.

“I t-told him that there were l-l-lights in the sky that only come out when it’s dark,” Rabbit explained. “A-a-a-and he didn’t seem to b-be-believe me, so I de-decided to show’im.”

Her creator frowned. “Rabbit, why in god’s name did you tear the gauze curtain off of the wall?”

“I w-wanted to show my brother the lights.”

“It was _nailed down_ , Rabbit.”

“W-was I not s-su-s’posed to?” she mumbled unsteadily.

Peter was about to reprimand her, but paused, sighed and thought better of it. “I guess we don’t really need them up anymore. They were only to try and scare Mr. Kahn away. But I’m going to have to look at the window frame later, in case you tore any pieces out of the plaster.”

“Okay,” Rabbit murmured, gazing sheepishly at the floor. “B-but... Peter... i-if you need to sleep, I-I’m sure me’n my brother will be f-fine.”

“I closed my eyes for a minute and you ripped a curtain off the wall.”

“B-but you...” she started, but she quickly stopped, resuming her guilty pose. “I’m s-s-sorry, Peter.”

“I understand it was a bit of an accident. I wasn’t awake to keep track of you anyway.”

“It’s okay. Humans need to s-sleep to g-g-get energy, so they can work, r-r-ri-ight?”

Peter nodded. “Right.”

“S-so how come you’re so l-l-low on energy?”

The question was unexpected, and Peter found himself glancing over at the opposite end of the room, where Rabbit’s brother was still sitting, transfixed by the night sky. “I could give you an answer, but I’m not sure now is a good time. Remember what I said about your brother?”

Rabbit glanced over at the mentioned machine. “I d-don’t think he’s listenin’, Peter.”

The engineer sighed, turned back to his first creation and lowered his voice. “If you really want to know, it’s because I need more energy than I usually do. Right now, a lot of whatever energy I have is going to the twins.”

“Because you g-gotta help them grow an’ be strong?”

“Exactly. I need more right now than what I normally would because a part of it automatically gets given away. Besides that, they feel quite heavy when you have to carry them around all the time.”

“S-so that’s why you’re a-a-always sleepy.”

“That’s a part of it,” he equivocally replied.

Having obtained her answer, Rabbit smiled gleefully back at him for a second before she scampered off to the corner to rejoin her brother at the window. He watched the two of them and listened to Rabbit babble, pointing out all her favorite stars that they could see from the window and connecting the dots of light with imaginary lines. It took hardly any time for him to start nodding off again, but he fought it with every last fiber of strength that he had. It would only be another hour or so before Iris came in for her shift with the automatons. He just had to hold out until then.

Before he knew it, Iris had arrived. He heard her soft footsteps echoing in the hallway before she softly called out to him, as she always did. “Peter?”

“I’m awake this time,” he replied.

Iris appeared in the doorway and approached him, a small smile gracing her lips. Peter tried to stand himself up from the sunken cushions of the fainting couch, and as if from instinct, Iris quickened her steps and helped him to his feet. “How are you feeling?” she cordially asked.

“A little tired, but not terribly,” he replied.

“How did the conversation with Rabbit go? I meant to ask sooner, but I never quite got the chance.”

“It went surprisingly well. Or maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise. I don’t think she quite realizes what the issue is. I tried to explain, but I’m not sure how well it’s stuck.”

“That’s hardly a shock. She hasn’t been taught all the conventions.”

“I know, but... I’m not sure what the issue is. Maybe I’ve been stuck for so long on the idea that word of this whole situation getting out could ruin me, I never considered any other reaction.”

“Well... how _did_ she react?”

“She was happy for me,” he said, in awe of the fact even now. “Even after I’d explained why everything was wrong. I don’t know what I expected of her, if I thought she would be repulsed or afraid or just flat-out not believe me. Of course she wouldn’t have any ideas preemptively put into her head like the rest of us do. If only...” He exhaled and leaned onto Iris’s shoulder. “If the rest of the world thought like her, I wouldn’t have to hide like this.”

“You won’t have to for very much longer,” Iris replied. “It’s only another few weeks. Then you’ll be free to go.” Strangely, she sounded almost sad when she said it. Her voice made Peter ache somewhere deep and uncharted.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he murmured. “I won’t be an exonerated man. I still have responsibilities. Someone has to teach the automatons how to live. Things seem to have taken an unexpected turn with them.”

Iris laughed softly and smiled. “That would hardly be the first time.”

With a weary sigh, Peter lifted his head and stepped back from her. “I suppose you want me to leave you to your shift of watching, then?”

She nodded. “Johona’s orders.”

“Can’t argue with that.” He glanced over at the automatons, both still lively in the cool, quiet languidity of the night. “I’m going to have to figure out a solution for this.”

“I trust you will. You only need to give yourself some more time.”

“The direction things are going, I’ll likely spend all of that time sleeping rather than thinking.” Peter didn’t know why he kept on stretching the conversation further. His brain kept reminding him how late it was, how his body had been thoroughly exhausted after the arduous day it had been through, but something else in him didn’t want to leave Iris just yet. Their exchange just didn’t feel complete. Something was missing.

Another giggle whispered from Iris’s lips before she rested a firm and gentle hand on his arm. “You need to rest, Peter.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll be on my way,” he surrendered, murmuring a faint laugh of his own. “Goodnight, Iris. And good luck. With the automatons, and... and everything else.”

He turned and left before he could say anything further. There was only a short pause when he heard the maid respond with a timid “Goodnight.” and he glanced back at her to let her know she’d been heard. His head felt filled with static; it was a side effect of the drowsiness, he was sure. It always scrambled his thoughts like this.

As he traveled to his room, he mulled over his exchange with Rabbit. He’d been doing that very thing all evening, and although the thought was little consolation to him, it gave him something to focus on. The only reason he’d had to go through with any of it was because Iris had promised her an answer in exchange for silence and good behavior. The maid hadn’t done so much as mention her plan to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her. Regardless of the means, the end had come about fairly well. Her promise to his automaton must have been a spur-of-the-moment idea, he theorized. He’d seen how concerned she had been about Rabbit’s state of mind and had briefly imagined the many kinds of tension that the misinformation could lead to between her and those who were supposed to be taking care of her. Besides that, after the twins were born, there would only be further questions. If Iris could have had her plot in mind before, surely she would have mentioned it to him.

Now that he examined it, Iris was very clever to use an explanation for Peter’s condition as a bribe to keep Rabbit quiet. When she’d said that she would do anything to keep him and the twins safe, she had meant it.

Not a moment after the thought crossed his mind, just like magic, Iris had filled his head again. He wondered about her as he readied himself for sleep. She’d done so much for him in their time together. He wasn’t in the mood to start listing off the services she’d done him, as the list would go on and on, and the very last thing he wanted to do at the moment was think. He might have even dared to say she’d saved his life. The plain fact of her existence had solved countless problems of his: his crow’s nest of a house, his empty days alone in the lab, his apathy toward his work, the overbearing uncertainty of what would happen to his twins... and his loneliness. Especially that.

Dressed in pajamas and carefully lowering his awkward body onto the mattress, he was reached by a sudden realization. Iris had consciously done a great deal for him, undoubtedly, but that was barely the tip of the iceberg. The maid, in her shy, subtle way, had changed something in him. As much as he’d tried to deny it, he’d been living in a shell, sealed bitterly away from reality. Johona had started steadily chipping away at it after her arrival, but Iris was the one who had somehow convinced him to cast off the last of the pieces after their combined efforts had shattered it. Truth be told, it wasn’t only the two of them who had broken him free. There was yet more to the spectacular accident of his salvaged existence.

Iris had made him cling to the last remaining threads of his life again. It was no longer resignation that kept him alive, but a renewed sense of purpose and new perspective that allowed him to see that there was indeed good in the world that Delilah and Thaddeus hadn’t yet managed to snatch away. Peter realized now that Iris was also the one who had convinced his sad, steely heart to love the twins he carried.

Peter let out a long, contented breath when he sank back into the pillows, glad to finally be able to forget the world for a few hours. With his head tilted forward at an angle, he found himself unwittingly looking down at his form sprawled out on the bed. He still felt slightly unnerved by the sight of his distended, misshapen body, but by then he had come to the conclusion that he probably never wouldn’t be. His hazy eyes focused on the soft glow that emitted from his bulging abdomen. The twins had been unusually still since the afternoon. They’d been through a lot that day, and it would be no surprise to him if they were too exhausted to move all that much.

With some difficulty, Peter scooted himself a little ways back to let the pillows prop him up a bit more. He couldn’t seem to divert his gaze from himself, though there was nothing happening to draw his eyes there at the moment. The twins weren’t moving, and the sight of his swollen belly was nothing new or shocking to him anymore. Seconds passed by him as he rested, motionless and silent, as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Yet, as if of its own accord, his right hand stirred from its position and drifted to his belly. It was unprompted this time, no insecurity or shock or compelling need to set the creatures inside him at ease. He cupped his palm against his burgeoning stomach and gently stroked the warm, curved surface. At long last, one of the twins stirred and poked at his hand. Peter let out a breathless laugh, smiled tiredly and placed the fingertips of his opposite hand against the small, formless shape. _They’re still alive_ , he thought absently to himself. In the face of all the odds that were stacked against them- their impossible origin, the outside world that would think them abominations, even his own hatred towards them at the beginning- by some miracle, they had both managed to survive. “You’re still alive,” he unconsciously murmured.

Peter’s awareness was delayed, and it took a second for him to realize he’d spoken out loud. Talking to the empty air was a long-standing habit of his, yet he felt a bit embarrassed, in spite of the empty room. Maybe it was because the twins were with him. _Can they hear me_ ? he silently wondered. He already knew they had learned to recognize certain voices. They must have heard his more than anyone else’s, and that thought only made him wonder even further. _Are they listening right now?_

A chill ran down Peter’s back, and he folded himself up further against the pillows, curling his body around his stomach in an attempt to preserve its warmth. He wrapped his arms around himself, and as if of their own accord, his hands were drawn to his midsection. He cradled his distended belly, staring at the light inside, like a clairvoyant looking into a crystal ball in some ludicrous hope of seeing the future. He felt an ache surging up in his chest, and he spoke again. “You’re still alive... in spite of everything,” he began.

His words were barely even whispers, the stillness of the room making instilling a reluctance to speak any louder. He could barely hear himself, but some deep, intrinsic part of him trusted that the twins could hear what was being said. In fact, maybe they already knew.

“All of this must be confusing to you, what with the way I treated you before,” he softly continued. “All those things I said about you, and... and what I _did_ ... I don’t even know if it’s worth saying I want to take it all back. Maybe there was some kind of cosmic justice in all of it, some reason why I had to go through what I did only to land here. I-in any case... what I meant to say is...” He paused to take a steadying breath. “I _do_ want you. Maybe I always did, and it took me until now to realize it. It doesn't matter why. All that’s important is that that’s the truth. I was so slow to my feelings, and I did so many stupid things, but things are so different... _I’m_ different, and I... I love you both, more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. And... I will do everything that I can to keep you safe. Even if it kills me, I swear I will protect you until the end.”

The silence that followed felt unsettlingly empty. A hollow feeling of resignation took up residence in the pit of Peter’s chest. The tiny creatures inside of him probably couldn’t care less about anything he said. Then, without any warning, he felt them stirring. They pressed up against his arms and tapped against his hands before they finally nestled against one another and went still again. It was as much of a response as they could give, wordless and nearly incomprehensible, but Peter could understand well enough what it meant. The twins had heard every word that he’d said.

Peter let out a shaky exhale of relief that sounded almost like a laugh. His heart welled up, straining at his ribcage. He felt like his chest might burst from the rapid overflow of emotion. He stroked his hand over his stomach one last time before he carded his fingers into his hair and laughed wearily at himself. He could be such a syrupy fool when he was overtired. He had to get some sleep like Iris had asked him to do if he wanted to have his head on straight by the following morning. He turned out his bedside lamp and fiddled with the mass of pillows, trying to get them into the right arrangement that allowed him to sleep comfortably.

At long last, he curled up on his side, surrounded by pillows and swathed in the faint blue glow that seeped through from under the covers. The light had become so strong that even a layer of sheets and blankets couldn’t snuff it out completely. He didn’t mind it, though, and Iris never complained. It didn’t take long at all for him to sink into the gentle oblivion of sleep.

The hours passed dark and dreamless. Peter could remember nothing onward from the moment he closed his eyes. Then, off in the distance of his consciousness, he heard the quiet click of the latch in the bedroom door. The hinges creaked softly as it was slowly opened.

Peter, just barely awakened by the sound, cracked his eyes open and peered past his eyelashes at the sliver of light that seeped in from the hallway. A small, soft figure passed through and into the room, her tightly curled hair drifting about her head and shoulders like a dark cloud. _Iris_ , he instinctively knew. He had surfaced from sleep just in time to see her return from her shift.

The maid drew a little closer to the bed and leaned over him. Her doe eyes studied him intently in the darkness. She must not have seen that his eyes were slightly open, because after a moment she smiled softly, sighed and disappeared from his field of view. A second later, he felt her crawling under the covers alongside him. She nestled herself close to him, pressed up against the pillows that stabilized his back. He felt one of her arms drift gently over his side and come to rest at his waist. Her breath brushed against the back of his neck as she exhaled and went still. Something about the placement of her hand told him she was holding back for his sake. Warm static filled Peter’s chest, and the idea came to him that he could take Iris’s hand in his and pull her a little closer to him, let her drape her arm over his body and get as near to him as she pleased.

In fact, he tried to do just that. There was only one issue. He couldn’t get his arm to move.

Peter couldn’t be sure what was wrong. The covers were thrown loosely over the two of them, not tangled or twisted in the least. His body hadn’t gone numb, as he could still sense the cotton sheets against his skin and the warm weight of Iris’s hand on his waist. Yet, for some reason, he seemed to be paralyzed. The only part of him that had any autonomy was his eyes.

That being the case, he gave up on trying to feign sleep and fully opened his eyes to look about the dimly lit room. There was nothing to be seen there, as he expected. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, as well as his head. For the moment, all semblances of drowsiness had disappeared from him. His eyes felt weightless in comparison to his heavy, useless body. They scanned the periphery of his vision, wide with restless astonishment.

It was then that, off in the corner of the room, he thought he spied a hint of movement.

At first, it appeared to only be the curtain of the French windows fluttering from a gentle breeze. They were crafted from a light fabric, and it was an easy explanation. That was, if Peter hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that he had never opened the windows in the first place. No, it was something else. There seemed to be something- a solid, physical thing- causing the curtains to stir in such a way. He strained his eyes, trying to see what it was, but it was just beyond the range of his vision and no amount of pain in his eye sockets would enable him to see the source of the disturbance.

A faint shiver ran down Peter’s spine as the air in the room itself momentarily shifted. Slowly, something materialized from the curtains. It appeared to be tall, almost twice the height of the drawer chest beside it. The thing swayed gracefully like a willow in the wind as it took shape, revealing delicate limbs and the tightly pinched waist of a corseted figure. It moved a little closer, and its head, which before had seemed shapeless, was revealed to be a pointed, heart-shaped face surrounded by a thick curtain of long, wavy hair. It paused, observing the motionless figures in the bed, before moving on with its approach. Peter spied two pools of murky blue embedded in its face.

The apparition stepped into the faint halo of light, and Peter felt his heart stop. It was a woman dressed in a very specific code of lab attire with goggles perched atop her head, almost hidden by her hair. She drew closer yet and carefully studied Peter with a set of foggy blue eyes that he remembered with burning clarity.

It was Delilah. She looked just as Peter remembered her, the last time he had seen her alive.

White noise filled Peter’s ears as he stared at the apparition of his long-lost friend. That was what it had to be, he frantically rationalized. An apparition. A surreal vision of some kind. No logic or reason stood behind her having any reason to appear to him herself. He must have still been dreaming. And yet, he still felt Iris close beside him and his pulse throbbing in his fingertips, quickly picking up speed.

A long, silent moment passed between them in which Delilah did nothing but hover over him and watch. Her eyes wandered over his motionless form, that of Iris lying beside him, the faint remains of his healing burns on his face. Finally they settled on his belly- how freakishly swollen it was and the faint, unexplainable glow filtering through the sheets. Peter’s eyes stung. Insecurity clawed relentlessly at him, but there was nothing he could do to cover up the truth when he couldn’t even move. Delilah’s eyes widened a little as she stared, then her expression suddenly softened. She looked toward his face and smiled.

If he had been able to move, Peter would have been trembling. If he had been able to move, he probably would have awoken Iris and run from the room by then, but that was out of the question. His heartbeat rang in his ears while he watched Delilah bend to hover over him. Slowly, she extended a hand towards him and let her fingertips graze over the prominent swell of his stomach. Her touch was cold, like being stroked with the tip of an icicle, but there was something deeply reassuring about it. Peter’s heart slowed as the truth sank in. Delilah meant him no harm.

She was looking at his face again,  her face drawn into a sad, delicate smile. She drew back from him for a second before kneeling down before where his head rested on the pillows, bringing her face level with his. She didn’t say a word, only gazed into his eyes for a moment before raising a hand to run her fingers through his hair. She’d done it to him before, when he was anxious or upset. She’d been one of the few who knew how comforting he found it, and one of the even fewer who were willing to help when the situation called for it. Delilah’s fingers reached the back of his neck, and she cupped her hand around his cheek, staring at him with a sweet, wistful look in her eyes. Her hand was like a gale of winter wind, ice-cold and barely present at all, but Peter didn’t care. He was only glad to see her face again and know she still cared.

Slowly, without warning, Delilah leaned towards him, closed her eyes and placed a soft, frigid kiss on his forehead. It was fast and fleeting, but even as she pulled back, Peter reeled from the impact. The sensation made him want to shiver, but at the same time filled his chest with an overflow of warmth. It wasn’t anything like what he’d felt for her while she was alive. It was far different. Gratefulness, rather than desire or anything like it. He watched her stand again and return her gaze to his stomach, a tenderness in her eyes that he’d never seen before in all the years that he’d known her. With one fluid motion, she leaned down and gently pressed her lips against his protruding belly.

One of the twins woke up and began to squirm. In his paralyzed state, Peter could do nothing about it, but even with no direction, Delilah seemed to know exactly what to do. She caressed his abdomen with her icy hand, the baby reached its tiny limbs towards her, then curled up beside its sibling and fell asleep again. Delilah didn’t move for a moment, only stood, looking wistfully down at where her hand rested. Then she looked back at Peter, a sad smile on her lips. She blinked, and two drops of pale, ectoplasmic teal welled up from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her pallid face.

“Take care of him for me,” she whispered. “Promise?”

Then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghosts, man.  
> See you next chapter.


	23. Vignettes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck, guys. Steampunk World's Fair is this weekend, and I'm finally going.  
> So, in celebration, another chapter after like a month of no updates. I hope you find this gift to be satisfactory.  
> The real reason I've been so got damn inactive here lately is because college is a bitch and I've been working late nights for about a month and a half. I've been under a lot of pressure and have had hardly any time at all to produce new content. Because no, this story still is not finished. If I tried to keep updating regularly and reached a point where there was nothing new to post, that would really suck. It's already happened with another story of mine, and it's a terrible place to be in. So I'm not going to pull that garbage on myself again, or any of the 10 people out there who read my story.  
> I'm 23 chapters deep in this shitwreck and I'm not going to puss out now.  
> Anyway, I'm going to need to post fast, because I have to be up early tomorrow morning to cover my entire body in metallic latex paint. I think I'm going to enjoy not being a human for 12 hours.  
> I'm still talking, but you didn't come here for this. You came here for my weird-ass fanfiction.  
> So here you go, suckers.

 

Nearly a week had passed since the discourse with Kahn, and in all that time, the emissary hadn’t once shown his face at the manor again. Johona was wary, but day by day his absence lulled the household back into a sense of security.

With no more need to feign illness or stand around and wait for strangers to come knocking, Johona could once again work full days at the hospital with considerably less paranoia creeping over her shoulder. As far as she knew, no one else would be disturbing the relative peace that had lately seemed to be in short supply. It might have been the greatest relief she’d ever felt into her life. Granted, the results of that relief were long and tiring days making up for all the time she’d lost covering for her “ill” friend, but she would much rather have lived with that than the threat of exposure hanging over Peter’s head.

By the time she returned from the hospital, it was already dark outside. It couldn’t have been all that late, as the approaching winter had made the days fade faster than ever into nights. The real issue was that it was her turn to cook that night. She was sure Peter and Iris wouldn’t mind dinner being an hour or so late. If it really bothered them, they would have fixed something for themselves. The lack of aromas drifting from the kitchen told her that they hadn’t. 

She didn’t catch sight of either of her friends as she headed to the pantry and started rifling through the shelves. It was a little dispiriting, since she’d been hoping to see someone to whom she could complain about her day, though with her late return she wasn’t sure either of them would be game to hear about it. Besides, she was sure that it wasn’t only her job that left her so exhausted. The past months had taught her that emotions could be just as taxing as any kind of physical work.

There had been hardly a moment that passed in the last week in which she didn’t worry about Peter. His last episode had been, to put it simply, concerning. There were many other ways that Johona could have described it: terrifying, anxiety-inducing, flying at terminal velocity out of nowhere and leaving her completely bewildered and questioning every bit of medical knowledge she had learned since her childhood. She’d been considering the possibilities at a nearly constant rate. A good proportion of women she’d treated had dealt with Braxton Hicks contractions, and from what her patients had told her, they could be nearly as painful as those experienced during actual labor. The earlier episodes could have been easily explained in that single term, but the most recent had been something entirely different. She’d never seen Peter in so much pain before. The cases of premature births she’d witnessed were few and far between. If the excruciating episodes were signs that the twins would arrive a whole month early, her confidence that she could get her friend through the ordeal was even more tentative than before.

Then she had remembered that as far as she knew, Peter didn’t have the reproductive organs to give birth in the natural manner. That being the case, the earlier episodes couldn’t have been a result of muscle contractions. But if that wasn’t the cause, then what was? And where in god’s name was the heat coming from? 

The thought turned over in her mind as she lit the stove and started cutting vegetables. She considered everything she knew about the situation. Heat was one sign of a chemical reaction. Pain could be caused by a number of things. Little, if anything, was known about the blue matter that Peter worked with, but in all their time living under the same roof, he’d told her enough about his experiments to know that blue matter produced heat when active. Also, apparently, it could phase paths through solid matter.

All of a sudden, Johona’s hands went still. She stopped, backtracked and reiterated all her passing thoughts. When producing heat, blue matter could also phase through solid matter. Then what in the blazes was it doing to Peter’s body?

In that same moment, she heard someone approaching from the hallway. Johona glanced over her shoulder at the doorway just in time to see Peter stagger through. He was still dressed in his lab attire, his white coat smeared with oil and grease. Obviously he hadn’t taken the time to change before paying her a visit.

“Thank god you’re here, Johona,” he said breathlessly. “I have a theory that I desperately need to share with you.”

“How serendipitous,” she replied. “So do I.”

With a heavy sigh of relief, the engineer dragged a chair back from the table and collapsed onto it. He was trying to cover it up, but Johona could hear that he was gasping for breath. “I’ve been sitting with this in my head for ages, and you would not believe how badly needed to get it out to you, but I could never seem to remember it at the right time. I was in the study and thought I heard you return, so I came as fast as I could.”

“Which wasn’t very fast at all, I see.”

Peter jerked his head around to glare daggers at Johona. “Why don’t  _ you _ try and run through a hallway and down a flight of stairs with a wrecking ball strapped to your stomach?”

“Point taken,” she muttered, turning back to her work. “Tell me about this theory you had in mind.”

“Before I say anything more, I’m going to have to ask you not to panic.”

“What could possibly throw me into panic after everything else we’ve already been through?”

Her friend paused, took a breath, then bluntly said, “Wherever in my body the twins are, I think they’re moving closer to my skin.”

Johona dropped her knife on the counter and spun around to face her friend. Her eyes had gone wide as tea saucers, her mouth hanging open and her mind was scrambling desperately to find words to fill it, but all she could seem to manage was “W-what... how... how did you...”

“It doesn’t seem right at all, but in light of recent events, all of it fits,” Peter went on. “The heat. The pulsing. The glowing. Everything makes sense. Even if it didn’t, this is the only theory that we have.”

“Then the episodes...” Johona mused. “That was the matter, forging a path through your organs?”

“I think so.”

“It’s been going on for months, though. It must have gotten through them by now.” She briefly stopped to think. “It must be moving slowly. Natural logic would dictate that such things shouldn’t be rushed.”

“Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t explain why the last episode was the worst we’d seen yet.”

That made Johona pause. She glanced incredulously at her friend. “You mean to tell me that you haven’t had a single episode since the night after Kahn?”

Peter shook his head, seeming just as perplexed as she felt. “Not one,” he stated. “I don’t know what’s happened. Before then, I was having them almost every other day, and now they seem to have disappeared.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You’ve just gotten into your eighth month. If anything, your body should be in overdrive to prepare itself, at least in comparison to its former state.”

“Maybe it was getting everything out of the way early.”

“Are you telling me that blue matter is planning these things in advance?”

“I have no blasted idea,” Peter tossed back at her. He slumped over in his chair and stared at the table. “Sometimes...” he timidly murmured after a long silence. “Sometimes I think that it might be.”

“What?” In the middle of cooking, Johona had since stopped listening, but she hadn’t managed to miss that. 

“The blue matter...” He paused to laugh at himself. “This must sound so silly to you, but I think _ it _ knows things that the rest of us don’t.”

“Christ. First you’re pregnant, then a mysterious substance is predicting the future.”

“I’m serious, Johona. There have been times where I’ve... I’ve  _ seen _ things, and you know about all the strange dreams I’ve been having. They’re all so vivid, more than anything I’ve ever seen. Most nights I can barely remember them, but when I can, I realize that they’re always about things I remember or keep in mind most of the time. I know that’s what dreams normally are, but it’s the way they present themselves. Always with questions, and the same scenarios playing over and over again. It’s like I’m being  _ analyzed _ . Like there’s someone inside my head, probing for information.”

It took a moment for all of the information to process. No matter how Johona looked at it, her friend’s claims were questionable at best, outlandish at worst. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” she supplied. “And I’m sure the hormones haven’t been helping your psyche.”

“This has nothing to do with  _ lately _ . It’s been going on for months, Jo. You know that.”

Johona sighed and glanced at him, eyebrows skeptically raised. “Are you sure the matter hasn’t all gone straight to your head?”

“That’s exactly what I think happened,” Peter said with a chilling note of finality.

There seemed nothing more to say after that. Johona went back to her task of preparing dinner. Behind her, she heard Peter shrugging off his lab coat and leaving it draped over the back of his chair. He moved beside her to wash his hands before approaching her. “You seem tired. Anything I can do to help?”

“You can start layering these together in a dish and add the seasonings I’ve put out,” she said, pushing the cutting board of diced vegetables toward him. She’d handle the cuts of raw chicken from the icebox herself. Peter shouldn’t be risking exposure to such hazardous things in his state. There was so little control that she had over him as it was. She knew well enough that he’d taken no measures to limit his exposure to the radiation. Normally she would have thought this a foolhardy action on his part, but like most things, Peter’s situation appeared to be an exception. The radiation didn’t seem to have hurt him so far, and at the point they had gotten to, it seemed that if he stopped the exposure, it might spell disaster for both him and the twins.

Johona cast a cursory glance at her friend while she worked beside him at the counter. Without his lab coat, his protruding belly seemed almost comically obvious. Even after all the time she’d spent living in the same space as him, she still never failed to realize the absurdity of his situation. Whatever she couldn’t grasp in her mind unwaveringly warped itself into something funny. Because, in general, it was. The thought of what had befallen her friend was like a comedic trope that some humorist must have written before. She couldn’t be sure who, but there had to be someone.

Even as laughably strange as it was, something about it felt right to her. It hadn’t at first, for obvious reasons. Peter had been frightened, even so much as to threaten his own life in his misery. Slowly, though, he had evolved. She couldn’t be certain exactly what Peter had been thinking while the time had passed. He had confessed to having grown fond of the twins, though. He’d said he loved them. Maybe not willingly, or directly, but she had been his friend long enough to know what he meant. Now, seeing him at ease, a sense of safety having come over the house again, she noticed that he had a certain aura about him. She’d heard her patients call it a “glow” before. He had a literal one, of course, but this one was different.

“Have you seen Iris around?” she asked for no reason in particular.

“Can’t be sure, exactly. She was in the parlor with Rabbit and the other one, last I saw her. Judging by the silence, they must have left by now.”

“Speaking of that second automaton, haven’t you thought about what you were going to name him yet?”

Peter seemed to bristle at that. “Johona, I swear to god if you try to name him after me-”

“I won’t,” she assured him, a smirk crawling onto her face. “At least, I’ll hold off for now. You’re taking quite a while to make up your mind about this. You didn’t take nearly this long to name Rabbit.”

“That was a wholly different situation. Rabbit essentially named herself, and this one hasn’t spoken a single word since the day he woke up.”

“Well, maybe if you called him something, he would respond to it.”

“Maybe,” Peter absently replied. “I only don’t want to saddle him with something that sounds idiotic.”

“If you need a suggestion, I’m always here, you know,” Johona offered. “Or you could consult with Iris. She did a fair job naming Kepler, in my personal opinion.”

“She did.” There was a pause, and Johona thought she heard her friend sway a little on his feet. “How is it that she always seems to fix things when she steps in?” he mused. “You’ve noticed it too, haven’t you? It’s all so... coincidental.”

She glanced sideways again. As she did, she found herself struggling to restrain a laugh rising up in her throat. There was a faint smile at the corners of Peter’s lips, and his face seemed just a hint more blue than it had been when she had last seen it. “Is something on your mind?” she slyly asked.

“Just her. I mean, she was our topic of...” In that second, it finally occurred to him to meet her gaze. The first thing he registered was her knowing smirk. His face flushed even further with indignation. “W-what is that look for?” he sputtered.

“Not much,” she tossed back. “It’s nothing you’re aware of, anyway. Or are you?” She turned to face him and flicked her braid teasingly over her shoulder. “Honestly, Walter. For someone as intelligent as you are, you can be incredibly dense at times.”

“What... w-what do you mean, dense? What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you should take it up with Iris. I’m sure she knows more about it than I do.”

“More about what?”

Johona didn’t reply properly, only laughed a little to herself as she stepped back from the finished arrangement of chicken in the roasting pan. She felt Peter staring at the back of her head while she moved to the sink, waiting for an answer. “Let me pose a question to you,” she said over the rush of water from the tap. “Are you or aren’t you still infatuated with Delilah?”

“What does she have to do with any of this?” Peter retorted back instead of answering. “I thought we were talking about Iris.”

“We are, but there’s a connection between them I don’t think you’re registering.”

“But Iris isn’t anything like Delilah. I-I mean, Delilah was my friend once. It might have gone a bit haywire towards the end, but objectively, that’s all it ever was. And sure, I’m as close to Iris now as I used to be to any of you, but that’s all that-”

“I already knew you thought of Iris as your friend,” Johona cut in, one eyebrow incredulously raised. “But I still want to ask you; are you sure that’s it?”

“Of course it is. She isn’t a new Delilah. I’ve never...” All of a sudden, he stopped. Silence hung in the air that Johona knew neither of them needed to fill. Her friend’s gaze slid to the floor and he stared at the tiles, a look of pure bewilderment on his face. “Have I?” he murmured.

“Maybe you haven’t, but I’ve been wondering for some time whether or not she has.” Johona shrugged, but her wicked smile never left her face. “It’s not really my business to know, is it?”

For a moment, Peter seemed at a loss for words. He glanced at the cooking dish he’d just finished laying out on the counter and backed half a step away from it. “Th-there’s nothing more for me to do here, is there?” he hurriedly asked.

“I don’t believe so. There isn’t a lot of work that would go into the rest of it.”

“Right. Well, I... I just remembered there was, um... something I had to finish. Somewhere else.”

“Go on and finish it, then.”

“I will,” Peter stammered. He locked eyes with her one last time before grabbing his lab coat from the chair where he’d left it and swiftly disappearing from the room.

* * *

Peter lied. He had no reason to have returned to the lab. Truth be told, he would probably be regretting it later, since before long he would be taking another trip up the stairs that he wouldn’t have been necessary if he had just stayed in the kitchen and faced the facts. 

But what were the facts, anyway?

He didn’t know. He rarely ever did anymore. It seemed no one had a looser grasp than him on what went on in his life. The only things drifting in his mind at the moment were Johona’s implications and how the mention of Iris had sent his entire consciousness into a frenzy. 

_ Why do things have to be this way? _ he wondered as he leaned over his third partially-finished automaton and continued to fine-tune the micromachines in his jaw and around his eyes, disturbing them from the point he’d convinced himself was a good place to leave them until the following morning.  _ Why does everything always have to be complicated and confusing? _

He sighed in surrender and set his screwdriver down beside the automaton’s lifeless head. Agonizing over it wasn’t helping. He was a scientist, he reminded himself, and he was supposed to be trained for situations like these; making sense of the senseless was meant to be his specialty. 

But it wasn’t all that senseless. Not really. He knew well enough what Johona had meant with her playful insinuations, only he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He’d toyed with the idea as well, he admitted; after all, in some situations, it only made sense. Iris had been living in the same spaces as him for a long time now. He’d had plenty of time to observe her, take note of her behaviors, her proclivities, the patterns she fell into and the little peculiarities that made her... well, her. Her timid disposition had faded quite a bit from what it had once been, which he didn’t mind in the least. However, with the shell that subdued her personality wearing thin, some suspicions that had lurked in Peter’s mind for what must have been years beforehand could no longer be disregarded. He’d never let the thought evolve any further than a flimsy hypothesis, but now, for the first time, it spelled itself out in his head, tentative but clear.

_ Iris loves me? _

It came out as a question, rather than a statement. He couldn’t take himself seriously as the words enunciated themselves in his mind. It was absurd, he told himself. There was nothing she could possibly see in him: a mad scientist still building his credentials, a depressed recluse in a crumbling mansion,  a freak of nature who she should have found repulsive beyond belief. But she didn’t, he remembered. She’d promised her service to him for as long as he needed it. Even as his body had deteriorated, his condition worsened and the world around them made less and less sense, she hadn’t strayed from his side.

She wasn’t afraid of him. She had no fear of being close, touching him, staying at his side when he lost his composure and when any other woman would have scorned him for his weakness. She’d called him beautiful once. The words echoed, a little louder, and a little surer this time.

_ Iris loves me _ .

Peter felt a strange warmth clutching his chest. There was a lump in his throat, and his whole body was overtaken by a subtle unease. Oddly enough, it wasn’t quite a bad feeling. He felt like a weight had been suddenly lifted from his shoulders and left him floating, exhausted from dragging the burden around for so long. He slumped forward against the table and balanced his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his hair. In spite of the unnerving sensations, he laughed. His shoulders gently shook and a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He couldn’t believe it. He simply couldn’t, but there it was.

__ Iris loves me. _ _

He didn’t think he’d ever felt such joy in his life before, certainly not in recent days that he could remember. At that moment, Peter felt another sort of fluttering inside him, this time physical instead of imagined, which he quickly recognized as the minute movements of one of the twins. Instinctively, he placed a hand against his stomach. The baby pressed its tiny palms against his, straining at his taut skin. The feeling made him laugh again, and he leaned back against the lab table, looking down at his distended abdomen and stroking his fingertips gently across the convex surface.  

“Do you realize that?” he murmured to the two little creatures. “Your mother loves all of us.”

Then the realization hit him. The baby kicked, a little stronger than before, and Peter’s heart shuddered as the fact sank in. It felt too soon to jump to such conclusions. So much was happening already.  _ Iris loves me _ , he reminded himself, but the squirming twin seemed to insist that there was something more that needed to be said. And he knew exactly what it was.

_ I love Iris. _

It should have been an easier truth to come to terms with. It was his own, after all. Yet the thought brought with it a sense of guilt that weighed heavily in his chest. All at once, a thousand different instances of his own questionable behavior towards Iris, all the strange requests he’d made that no sane man would ask of his housekeeper, every last one his own peculiarities that he’d somehow been able to overlook with such ease all flooded his brain as if some metaphysical dam had been broken. 

How could he have been so oblivious? Moreover, how could he have led Iris on the way he had?

He wanted to ask how long it had been going on, but at that point, it hardly made any difference. What did it matter if he’d been in love for a day or a month or even a year? At least he had an answer now. Strange things he’d said ages ago suddenly made sense; telling Iris she was more than just his maid, choosing her to be the mother of his unborn children, letting her get as close as she had before choosing her to become his residential housekeeper. Maybe the reason why he hadn’t minded her fawning was because some part of him unconsciously knew that he would have returned it, had he been given the chance.

With that fact established, there was one last question remaining:  _ Where the hell do I go from here? _

Peter had no time to think about it, because not two seconds later, someone was at the door. He started toward the stairs to answer it, but before he even reached the first landing, it creaked open and someone fell through. He heard the discordant sounds of scrabbling feet, screeching metal, and finally the heavy  _ clunk _ of a certain copper someone falling down the stairs yet again. Rabbit rolled to a stop at his feet, flipped over onto her back and grinned. “H-h-hello there, P-Peter!”

“Hello,” he nervously replied. “In a bit of a rush, are you?”

“J-Johona told me to come g-g-g-get you. She’s d-d-done cooking, an’ she s-said you ran off w-w-while you two were talkin’ a while ago.”

“Did she, now?” Peter raised his eyebrows, pretending to be surprised.

“Y-yep, she did.” Rabbit sat herself up and clambered to her feet. She looked at Peter’s face for a second before her eye lenses flicked downwards. “H-how’re the t-t-tiny humans doing?”

“Fine,” he replied. “You know Johona won’t be giving me another check-up until next week. She just gave me one a few days ago.” Briefly, he glanced back at his workstation and quickly decided that he could probably leave his tools where they were. He started up the stairs, his automaton at his heels.

“I-I-I r-remember. I was jus’ wondering.”

“Well, you’ll know before long.”

Rabbit didn’t say very much as she watched Peter stagger up the stairs from a few steps away. He glanced back at her every now and again. There was some expression on her bare face that he couldn’t quite read, and every time he looked over his shoulder, her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on him. Then, without warning, he felt a hand on his back. He glanced back at Rabbit, and she was standing closer to him than before. One arm was outstretched, and the other was at his waist. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m h-helping,” Rabbit cheerfully replied. “They’re heavy, aren’t they?”

Peter smiled. “You remembered.”

“Y-you had to do this for m-m-m-me when I was lear-lear-learning how to walk. I’m n-n-n-not real sure what it does, b-b-but it must help somehow.”

“It guides a person and keeps them from falling over,” he explained. “I appreciate you doing this for me.”

“Y-you don’t have to talk. J-j-just make it up the stairs, okay?”

Peter scoffed a little at that, but he didn’t protest. Rabbit had already learned how to politely shut people up. It must have been Johona who taught her. “Do you know if Iris going to be meeting us upstairs?”

Rabbit nodded. “Mhmm. She’s w-with my brother right now, helping Johona set the table.”

“Good. I wanted to see her as soon as I can.”

“W-what for?”

“There’s something I absolutely must to talk to her about.”

* * *

It was nearly midnight. The grandfather clock in the library always chimed slightly before the hour actually struck.

“Iris?” Peter said when he stepped in and saw her across the room. “What are you doing up so late?”

“Just finishing up a few chores. I got a bit distracted by something today and I’m a little ways behind.”

“You can always finish tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll find the time.”

“I might. I likely will, but... th-there’s something else that I’d like to spend that on.”

“What is it?”

“What I got distracted by today... it was, um... sort of an ongoing project.”

“Really? What is it? I’d love to hear about it.”

Iris giggled. “I-I would tell you, but I was hoping I would keep it a surprise.”

“Alright, then,” Peter acquiesced with a smirk. “I’ll say no more on the subject.”

“I appreciate it.”

An awkward silence hung in the air.

“Er... Iris.”

Peter’s pulse rang in his ears.

“Yes?”

“I... I just wanted to say...”

Five entire seconds passed.

“... I hope the project goes well. Goodnight.”

* * *

“Hey, Walter, what do you want for Christmas?”

“I hardly think that’s something worth asking about.”

“Do you even realize what time of year it is?”

“I have a calendar, Jo.”

“Then tell me something. If you don’t have anything in mind, make something up.”

“Right now I’ve got more than I ever could have asked for. Adding anything else to the fray would make things far too complicated.”

“Did you just tell me there’s nothing you want this year...”

“Yes?”

“... because your life is so full of gifts already?”

“That isn’t what I-”

“You big mush.”

* * *

In the morning, not long after Johona left for the hospital, Iris realized that she never saw her employer return to his lab as he habitually did. Peter had gotten up earlier than usual that morning and had met with Jo and herself to have breakfast. He hadn’t gotten dressed yet, and had gone back upstairs to remedy that situation. When he failed to return, she took it upon herself to venture upstairs and look for him. 

He called out into the hallway when he heard her approaching. “Iris?”

“Yes, Peter?”

“Could you come in for a moment?” he asked, sounding hesitant. “I... I sort of need your help with... um, something.”

She rounded the half-open bedroom door and stepped into the room. Peter was sitting on the edge of his bed, his closet door open and a faintly distressed look on his face. 

“I, uh... I can’t get my shoes on.”

It took every ounce of self-control that Iris had to keep herself from laughing. She settled for a tight-lipped smirk and a short, restrained huff of breath through her teeth. True to his word, her employer’s feet were jammed halfway into a pair of short-laced oxfords.

“Please don’t laugh,” he begged her.

“I won’t,” Iris promised, though she couldn’t keep a flutter of a giggle from slipping into her voice.

Peter sighed, exasperated. “Can you just help me so we can get this over with as fast as we can?”

“Of course, of course. Right away.” 

Iris took care to push the door closed behind her before approaching the bed. She crouched down to bring her hands level with Peter’s shoes and gently eased his feet into them. The laces were loose, as if he’d been slipping them on and off in the recent past to avoid having to tie them. She didn’t blame him for it, seeing how inconveniently large his belly had grown. Through his socks, she could feel that his feet were swollen. No wonder he’d had such difficulty doing this on his own.

After the laces were securely tied, Iris stood up and held out her arms. Without a word, Peter begrudgingly took them, and she helped him to his feet. Once he was standing, he sighed again and dug his fingers into his hair.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so humiliated in my life,” he mumbled.

“Why? Because you needed a bit of help?”

“Yes. A bit of help with the most basic task known to man.”

Iris gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m sure there are tasks more basic,” she assured him.

* * *

As days passed, Rabbit grew more attached to Peter. She couldn’t follow him around all of the time, for obvious reasons, and she was close with her brother as well, nearly obsessed with talking at him and trying to relay to him all the information about life she had managed to gather with her limited experience. But whenever she could, it seemed, she would place herself in the same room as her creator. 

Maybe it was because she was his first, he figured. Or maybe she was trying to learn from him as fast as she could so she could have more to teach her brother.

Or maybe it was because of what she knew. That was always possible.

* * *

December had arrived. The streets in the city were trimmed already. Strings of fairy lights adorned the buildings, shop windows were filled with all manner of gifts and toys, and the streets had been lined with sturdy evergreen trees that looked a bit out of place in California’s snow-deficient climate. San Diego was a lovely sight during the holidays.

At least, that was what Peter assumed. He couldn’t really know for sure, since he hadn’t seen it himself that year. 

That must have been what bothered him most about not being able to leave the manor. It hadn’t really sunk in until then that he hadn’t set foot outside the property in months. He couldn’t have done it if he tried, though. His anxiety would have him crushed within minutes. That, and the fact that that his appearance would raise more suspicions than he could clear up in his entire lifetime.

For those reasons, he was content to stay in the parlor for the evening and watch Rabbit and her brother while they waited for Iris to come back from running errands. Johona had returned not long before and had taken it upon herself to start dinner with what was left in the pantry and icebox before the week’s new groceries were brought in. She’d been working that day, and with Iris busy, Peter had to reach a compromise in his schedule and let his automatons stay in the basement lab with him while he worked on their brother. By some miracle he was able to get them to behave, and they both seemed to have taken up an avid fascination with what he was doing; Rabbit hadn’t once stopped asking questions, and her brother had perched himself on a nearby stool to study his creator’s every move. 

They day had gone a little slowly, especially since Rabbit had gotten bored in the afternoon and wanted to take Kepler outside for a bit, but it didn’t seem to have impeded his progress very much. The third automaton was still very well underway. There was very little left that he needed to do before he could install the core and complete him: only a few refinements to his joints, maybe adding a little more stability to his structures and the elaborate metal lattice that served as his torso. Peter had started to run out of brass and copper by the time he had started to build him. With Rabbit and her brother already awake, he couldn’t dip into their reserves to add to his latest creation. The resulting machine was spindly and delicately built. He had done all he could to reinforce the automaton’s bones and internal structures to ensure that he held together,  but he was ultimately unsure of how durable this one would be.

Other priorities were more pressing, though, so he wasn’t able to work out a solution or alteration right away. Rabbit and her brother had to be watched while Johona continued to be busy and Iris was absent. Peter sat huddled into the corner of a couch, a cup of steaming tea balanced in his hands, while he observed his two inventions bantering and playing games with Kepler. Well, Rabbit was bantering. Even after two weeks, her brother still had yet to speak a single word.

“She likes to b-b-b-b-bite things, so you g-g-gotta be careful,” his first invention told his second while she tickled Kepler’s nose with a wooden carrot wrapped in orange twine. “Softer stuff is okay, l-like what her t-t-toys are made of. But not us. Metal would b-b-br-break her teeth.” She gingerly stroked Kepler’s muzzle with the tip of one gloved finger, then quickly pulled it back when the rabbit began to nibble at the thick woven yarn. “H-hey, q-q-q-qui-it that!” she scolded. “I g-g-gotta keep these g-g-gloves nice, or Peter s-said I can’t p-play with you!”

“I think a simple ‘no’ would do a little better,” Peter advised, trying not to laugh. “She can’t understand a sentence that long.”

“B-b-but Kep’s gotta know how i-im-im-important they are.”

“Alright. If you say so,” he acquiesced before taking another sip of tea. It was true, what Rabbit had said about the gloves; they were extremely important, at least to her. She’d received them only a few days before. Peter would never forget the excitement on her face when Iris had taken them out from her apron pocket and fitted them over her coppery hands. 

Somehow the task of finishing Rabbit’s external shells, the things that were supposed to give her a smooth exterior and finished appearance, had managed to consistently evade Peter. The past weeks had wrapped him up so thoroughly in finishing her brothers and other pressing matters that he had simply never gotten around to it. As a result, her hands were left sharp, wiry, and somewhat clawlike. She’d accidentally scratched her inventor on more than one occasion, and after that, he hadn’t known what to do other than advise her to be more sparing about touching things, especially those that were living. That had upset her; from what he’d learned of her so far, Rabbit was an extremely affectionate person. Then, the day that Iris had come into the lab and offered her those gloves, both Peter and his creation were taken completely by surprise. At first he thought she had bought them, but as it happened, Iris had knitted them herself.

It was kind of strange, he thought. The maid had never before made any mention of her being able to knit. He theorized that it must have been another long-buried skill of hers, since she seemed to have a boundless wealth of those. Then she had bluntly said, “I’m sorry if they’re not very well-made. I’m still new to all of this, but I did the best I could.” In the following conversation, it came out that she had found a few books on needlework buried in the endless book-filled hellpit that was Peter’s library. She had picked up a set of needles and a few spools of yarn in town and, in a matter of days, had managed to produce a fine set of thick, tight-stitched gloves from densely spun charcoal grey wool. And of course, she’d planned to craft pair for Rabbit’s brother in due time, as well. She simply wouldn’t have anyone being jealous of anyone else through any fault of her own, and even if his hands weren’t as dangerous as Rabbit’s, a little extra softness couldn’t hurt.

Iris never did cease to amaze him. It was a wonder why even after all this time, he still hadn’t found the courage to say a word about the epiphany he’d had nearly two weeks before.

Peter quickly pulled the brake on his thoughts and turned his attention to his automatons and the rabbit between them to take his mind off of what had just run through it. It wasn’t a matter of much importance, he convinced himself. Let it be. If Iris wanted to be conspicuous about her feelings, she could do it on her own terms. After Delilah, he was used to holding himself back. Johona had a far better intuition than he did, and she had supposedly picked up on the frequencies between them long before Peter had, but at the same time, she had never directly said that Iris was in love with him. Beyond that, Peter had very little faith in his instincts. What with there they had gotten him so far, he wouldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, and metaphysical concepts are extremely difficult to throw.

Coincidentally, in the same moment, he heard the distant sound of the heavy front door swinging open and the wind slamming it shut again. Iris’s footsteps approached at a fast, excited clip. Peter wanted to stand up and rush to greet her, but his body held him back. He didn’t have to wait long for her as it was; she appeared in the doorway within a minute, her cheeks rosy from the cold and a gleeful smile on her face.

“Good evening, Peter!” she exclaimed as she rushed to meet him. His own smile matched hers as she flung herself into the space next to him. “The city is just stunning this time of year. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it lit up like it is. I didn’t expect to be out so late, but it got dark earlier than I anticipated, and once it did... Oh, it was marvelous!”

“Was it?” Peter asked. He was genuinely curious. He was sure that he hadn’t seen the city the way Iris had in some time, either, and not only because he had been confined to his home for the past months. There was more to it that he didn’t quite feel like remembering at that moment.

“Oh, yes,” Iris gushed. “All the shop windows are decorated, and there are fairy lights and garlands put up everywhere. They’ve put wreaths on every street lamp, and...” She paused, her enthusiasm suddenly waning. “I-I’m sorry, I just remembered.”

Peter felt a pang of guilt interrupt the soft flitter in the chambers of his heart. “It’s fine, Iris,” he assured her. “Go on. Tell me everything.”

“Th-that was it, really. I didn’t have much more to say. Only that everything’s been decorated. It really was a wonderful sight to wander around in.” 

“Oh. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, then.”

Iris smiled again, seeming relaxed. “How was your day?”

“Eventful,” Peter described. “Had to keep Rabbit and her brother in the lab with me today. They didn’t get into too much trouble, but I can tell you they definitely kept me on my toes.”

“Kep g-g-g-got loose from her hutch an’ we had to ch-chase her an’ put her back!” Rabbit interjected.

“You were the one who let her out, Rabbit.”

She pouted at that. “I was jus’ t-tr-trying to show my b-broth-ther how to hold her.”

Peter rolled his eyes and glanced over at Iris to speak further when he noticed the pensive look on her face. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“Me?’ Iris seemed surprised by the question. “N-nothing much.”

That, of course, Peter did not believe for a second. “Would you rather I try and guess what it is?”

In the background, Rabbit was rambling on and on, her voice slowly gaining volume. “I ha-haven’t seen many animals, b-b-b-but I think rabbits are my favorite. P-probably because my name-ame-ame is Rabbit. Rabbit was a-actually the f-f-f-f-first word I said out loud. Then I liked it so much, I didn’t stop saying it. That’s how I got my name.” All of a sudden, she turned to her creator and bluntly asked, “H-hey, Peter, how come my b-b-br-brother hasn’t g-got a name?”

“Oh. Right, that.” Now Peter felt embarrassed. He couldn’t believe that something like that had somehow slipped his mind. Maybe it was because he hadn’t wanted to saddle his creation with a poorly-thought-out name, or he had just been procrastinating. It was even worse than his problem with finishing Rabbit’s shells.

“W-we can call him Sky,” Rabbit quickly offered. “C-c-cause he stares at it all the time!”

“Sky is a nice name,” Iris mused.

“It is, but maybe we should think this through a little longer,” Peter added. “At least until we’ve run through a few more options.”

“Alright,” Iris agreed. She went quiet for a moment while she thought things through. “Let’s see... he’s thoughtful, observant, has a calm disposition... maybe Siddhartha?”

“You want to name him after the founder of Buddhism?”

The maid shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

“What’s B-bu-dhi-sum?” Rabbit interrupted.

“That would take a long time to explain, Rabbit,” Peter said. “Right now, we have to focus.”

“W-we could always j-just c-c-call him Dave or something.”

“Rabbit...”

“O-or Spoon! C-cause he’s silver an’ shiny like one!”

“You’re even worse at this than Johona is.”

“We could name him Long John Silver,” Iris offered, gently nudging the conversation back on track. “It works with his appearance. Naming him after a pirate, though... I’m really not sure.”

Peter sighed. “At this rate, we’re going to spend even longer on his name than I did building his spine.”

Iris seemed to perk up at that. “Wait a second. What was that you just said?’

“I spent a great deal of time on his spine,” Peter murmured, vaguely confused.

“Are we g-g-gonna call my b-bro-brother Spine?”

“Well, the spine  _ is _ a very important part of his construction,” the engineer mused. “Christ, this is difficult. I feel like it might be easier if he could just  _ tell _ us what he wants his name to be. This could have been finished so much sooner.”

“If you want to call me The Spine, that’s perfectly okay with me,” someone said in a deep, silky voice.

The room went completely silent. Every set of eyes, even Kepler’s, had become fixed on the silver automaton sitting across from his sister in the middle of the floor. He glanced from one of his observers to the next. The silence was so pervasive that Peter could hear the hum of the micromachines in his neck as it swiveled his head in each direction that it turned. He seemed confused, but whatever had struck him was probably nothing in comparison to what Peter felt.

“D-did... did that just happen?” he murmured in disbelief.

For a second, the automaton’s face pulled into a concerned expression. “Did I say something wrong?”

“N-no, not at all. You’re... You speak very well.”  _ Extremely well _ , Peter added in his head. He had calibrated his second creation’s voice to fit into a bass singer’s range, but he hadn’t taken into consideration what it would sound like when he spoke. His speech was smooth, lacking his sister’s persistent stutter, imbued with a deep, soothing tone that reminded Peter almost of the lower pitched keys of a piano. “I... I’m sorry, how long have you been able to do this?”

“I was practicing for a while,” he explained. “I wasn’t sure whether or not I could do it, but since it seemed so important I have a name, I thought now was as good a time as any.”

Peter opened his mouth to say more, but words seemed to have ceased to exist, leaving him staring and slack-jawed. Iris spoke up instead. “You’ve done a fantastic job,” she said.

“Thank you, Iris.”

The maid let slip a delighted gasp, as if pleasantly surprised that the automaton had remembered her name. 

“B-b-but if you c-c-c-could talk all this time,” Rabbit cut in, “h-how come you didn’ s-say anything whenever we were together?”

“It was talking me longer than I would have liked to avoid leaking oil whenever I opened my mouth.”

“W-well...” Peter tried to speak further, shocked as he was. “A-are you really fine with us naming you The Spine? The name makes a little bit of sense, but it needs quite a bit of context to realize, not to mention knowledge of you. The spine  _ is _ the most important part of you, but it seems a bit off for a name. Are you sure you’re fine with that being what we call you?”

“Of course,” he replied, “Though, now that I’m speaking, there is something I wanted to ask that I wasn’t sure how to put without words.”

“And what is that?”

The Spine took a steadying breath, exhaling a thin cloud of vapor, then turned to Iris. “You know Rabbit’s gloves? The ones she wears to play with Kepler? C-could I... could I maybe have a pair of my own?”

A smile lit up on Iris’s face, and she laughed. “They’re already underway,” she said affirmatively.

* * *

“Johona, you work with humans, right?”

“I do.”

“What are they like?”

“That’s a bit of a difficult question to answer, Spine.”

“Well, I don’t sleep at night, so I spend time thinking about things instead. I think about humans a lot. I’ve only ever met you, Peter and Iris, but I know there are more humans in the world than you.”

“It’s just about impossible to know what all of them are like, though. You can’t meet every single person in the world. There are just too many.”

“How many?”

“I can’t tell you exactly. Millions, definitely, and probably even more than that.”

“Wow.”

* * *

“Rabbit, how did you tear a light fixture out of the ceiling?”

“W-w-well, see, this one lightbulb was out, and-”

“And now  _ all _ of them are out. How did you even reach that high?”

“Y’see, th-there’s a lot of ch-ch-cha-chairs in here. So I thought-”

“Did you break the chairs, too?”

“S-sorta.”

Peter sighed, raking his fingers across his scalp and thinking. “I’m going to have Iris teach you repairs. If you’re going to be breaking things this often,  you’ll to have to start fixing them.”

* * *

One evening, while Iris was outside clearing a fresh dusting of snow flurries from the front walk, she caught wind of the door’s squeaky hinges swinging open and closed. She briefly paused in her motions to turn around. The Spine was making his way towards her, a pair of Peter’s boots pulled onto his metal feet. She would have thought that he wasn’t able to feel how cold the ground was, but she supposed that her employer simply didn’t want his creation getting his shells dirty or getting soil or snow stuck in his joints. The sun had already set, and he was little more than a silhouette when he stepped out of the porch light, but she could recognize him by the bright green glow of his eyes.

“Hello, Iris,” he said, greeting her with a cordial smile. 

“Good evening,” she replied. “What brings you out here?”

“Peter said there was something he wanted to show you.”

Something in Iris’s mind brightened at that suggestion. She spared no time in gathering up the yard tools and ferrying them all back to the porch at once before chasing The Spine into the house.

“They were all in the library, last I saw,” the automaton informed her while they walked. 

“All?”

“Rabbit is there, too. She said she wanted to see it happen.”

At that moment, Iris was out of questions to ask. Ideas were filling her head at an unprecedented pace, but she felt there was no time to spell them out and ask The Spine which was true. When they neared the library, she scurried ahead of the automaton, unable to wait another second to see what Peter’s invention claimed her employer was so eager to show her. 

“Iris!” came an ebullient shout from the library.

The maid dashed into the room to be met with her employer’s brilliantly smiling face. His eyes gleamed with excitement, rimmed with blue where his goggles had been shielding them for the majority of the day. He was still in his lab coat and protective gloves, oil stains smeared all over his face and hair as usual. Rabbit was perched on the fainting couch, looking absolutely giddy with her jaw quirked into a skeletal grin. Peter was standing already and ran to meet her as fast as his body would let him.

“Iris, thank god you’re here!” he gushed. “I-I can’t contain myself. I’ve done it! Of my own free will. Not a single thing wrong this time. No explosions, no blackouts, only... Oh, I’ve finally done it, Iris!”

His excitement had swept her up easily, though her confusion remained. She saw right away that his physique hadn’t changed, which ruled out a good number of her theories, but that only clarified so much. Breathlessly, she asked, “Y-you’ve done what?”

Not a second later, a shy, whispering voice echoed, “I-I...ris.”

The sound was close, almost like the words of a fairy perching on her shoulder. Iris whirled around to face the source, and it quickly dawned on her exactly how much she had missed when she had burst into the room and headed straight for Peter.

The Spine had returned to the couch to sit across from his sister, whose brilliant smile hadn’t faltered in the least. Situated on the floor between them, sitting cross-legged and upright like a forest creature on a buttercup, was another automaton. This one was smaller than the others, probably a few solid inches shorter if it were standing at its full height. It was built slight and willowy, with a spare, slender body and limbs so delicate Iris wondered if it was sitting because it couldn’t stand. The automaton gazed at her with wide-eyed curiosity, blue matter shimmering behind the glass lenses. Peter had given this one brass shells, polished and shined to look almost like burnished gold. Instead of solid metal sheeting, its torso had been cast in an intricate lattice, leaving its internal mechanisms visible through the gaps in the pattern. She could tell her employer had taken his time with this one; either that, or he was learning very quickly from experience.

Peter beamed with pride at his creation. “Yes, this is Iris,” he gently explained. He turned to the maid beside him. “Go on and introduce yourself. Be gentle, though. This one is a little shy.”

Iris glanced nervously at him, waiting for a reassuring nod, before gently approaching the machine on the floor. Its eyes followed her intently, then widened a bit further when she drew closer. The automaton scooted itself back against the couch and clung to Rabbit’s leg. Iris stopped in her tracks and knelt down. “I-I’m sorry, I... I don’t mean to frighten you,” she said in the same voice that she once used when speaking to Peter. “I’m Iris.”

The automaton blinked. “I-ris,” it murmured.

“Y-yes, that’s right,” she replied with a smile. For a moment, the two of them stayed in place, Iris afraid to startle the automaton and, she was sure, the automaton still debating whether she was safe or not. Slowly, she raised one hand to give a friendly little wave. The machine must have only been awake for an hour or two at most, and Peter definitely hadn’t taught it how greetings worked yet, but there was no harm in starting. The automaton cocked its head, its face blank with confusion for a moment before it hesitantly moved its own hand to shakily imitate the gesture. Iris’s heart brimmed with delight, which bubbled up from her chest and became a wonderstruck laugh. That seemed to finally elicit a reaction from the automaton in front of her. At a snail’s pace, it tentatively detached itself from Rabbit’s leg and began to inch towards Iris. Without thinking, the maid reached out towards it with one arm, which stunned it and caused it to stop for a second before it intrepidly did the same. Its fingers trembled as they extended toward Iris, and she met them with her own. Its hand was bigger than hers, but that didn’t change how small the machine acted.

Iris gazed at their intertwined hands as the automaton cautiously explored her fingers and palm and tugged delicately at the end of her sleeve. “Oh, Peter,” she said breathlessly. “This one is absolutely precious.”

“Y-yeah, Peter made the shells extra p-p-p-pr-pretty,” Rabbit chimed in.

She didn’t have to look behind her to know her employer was smiling. “I did everything I could,” he replied.

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy is what I intended, though he seems more akin to a mouse. I think that he might need some time to get used to simply existing first.”

Meanwhile, the automaton had continued its exploration of Iris, now shifting into a new position to get a closer look at her face. His fingertips brushed delicately over her cheek and the bridge of her nose, causing her to giggle again. “He’s so gentle,” she remarked.

“It must have to do with the way he was built.”

Iris glanced up at Peter. “How so?”

“Well...” He hesitated for a second, a faint shade of blue creeping up his neck and bleeding into his face. “Please don’t look down on me as an engineer after I say this, but... I-I was starting to run short on materials. See, I used up so much of what I had to build the other two, so I had to improvise a bit with this one. He’s fully functional; he stands and walks and can go through all the other normal motions, only he’s a little more, um... delicate.”

“Oh.” Iris looked back at the infant automaton. “As long as he holds together and works, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Exactly how hardy do performers need to be?”

“Not extremely. It isn’t like they’ll be marching into battle anytime soon,” Peter replied. “Besides, maybe this will keep him from being as reckless as  _ a certain someone we know _ ,” he added, glancing pointedly at Rabbit

“B-b-b-but w-what’ve I done that’s r-r-r-r-reck-less?” she retorted. Peter rolled his eyes and Iris had to hold down a snort of laughter. They had already started making a log of all the things in the manor that needed fixing or replacing because Rabbit had broken them. It was far longer than any of them would have liked, and that didn’t even take into account the numerous accidents that had urged them to make that list in the first place.

“Oh,” the newest automaton cooed, totally absent from the conversation. Iris felt a slight tug on her scalp. It just so happened that while they were talking, the newest automaton had discovered Iris’s hair and immediately gotten his fingers tangled in it. He hummed contentedly, winding her curls into tighter and tighter knots as he explored.

_ Oh, dear _ , Iris thought to herself.  _ That’ll be difficult to get out. _

“He’s going to need a name,” Peter pointed out. “We should probably get to that before Johona does. I haven’t yet told her that this one is awake.”

“Ooh, this’ll be f-f-f-f-fun!” Rabbit exclaimed. “C-c-can I g-go first? C-can I? I w-w-wanna call him... uh... c-call him...”

“I think we should let Peter and Iris talk about this first,” The Spine put in, setting his sister at ease.

“Do you have anything in mind already?” Iris asked, now fiddling with the latest automaton’s fingers in her hair.

“Nothing in all that much detail,” Peter admitted somewhat shamefully. “All I’ve managed to come up with was that I wanted him to have a normal name. I mean, the others have ones that suit them perfectly fine, it’s just... they’re nothing anyone would see on a census.”

Iris nodded along. “Alright. Then let’s try thinking of names you like the sound of.”

“Hm.” He took a second to think. “I’ve always liked the name Gideon.”

“Gideon is nice,” The Spine agreed.

“I don’t want to jump for the first one we think of, though. We should have at least a few others first. I remember I thought of a handful of names a while back. Let’s see... Levi was one of them, I think. Silas, too.”

“We could call him Merlin,” Iris offered. “Or Galahad. I think that one would fit him fairly well.”

“Now there’s an idea.”

“I do want to consider exactly how normal you want his name to sound, though. If you’re going to go about naming him after medieval heroes...” Iris trailed off and shrugged.

The Spine, meanwhile, was studying his younger brother with an intensive gaze. “I remember the name Jonathan from somewhere,” he said.

“That was one of Johona’s patients from the children’s ward,” Peter elaborated. “A consumption case, I think. His parents were religious and brought in a faith healer. Disrupted the whole blasted hospital. It was a sad story, really.”

“Jonathan isn’t a bad name,” The Spine went on. “And we can shorten it to Jon. Then it would be easy for him to say before he learns to use bigger words.”

“J-J...Jon?” the latest automaton cooed, tilting his head with intrigue.

Peter gazed at his invention for a moment. “I’m not sure. He doesn’t really look like a Jon to me.”

“He w-wouldn’t be just  _ a _ Jon, Peter,” Rabbit interjected. “He’d b-b-b-be  _ the  _ Jon. He’s the only one I kn-n-n-now, and he’s the b-b-best one there is.”

“Th-the... Jon,” her little brother said, a little more firmly this time.

“I don’t think the  _ a _ or  _ the _ part of it matters much-” The Spine started to explain.

Rabbit abruptly cut him short. “W-w-why not? Th-the Jon’s gotta know how imp-p-portant he is! An’ how g-g-g-great he is at bein’ J-Jon! Besides, you’re n-not just  _ a _ spine, you’re  _ The _ Spine. Why’s his name g-g-gotta be any d-different?”

“Th-the Jon,” the new machine echoed. He murmured the words over and over, testing them out in his mouth. His face pulled into a parody of a smile. “The Jon!” he excitedly babbled. “The Jon! The Jon!”

“S-see?” Rabbit pointed out proudly. “He likes that one.”

Peter sighed and let his head drop to rest in his hand. Iris had learned long ago that this meant he knew he’d been defeated. She reached out and overlapped his arm with a reassuring hand. “The name isn’t so bad,” she said. “It’s only got a title in front of it.”

“It’s ridiculous, but you do have a point,” he admitted.

“Think of it this way. At least Rabbit didn’t try to name him Spoon.”

At that, Peter let slip a laugh and raised his head from his hand. “She might have called him The Spoon, too. Then it would have just been confusing. Think of that. The Spine and The Spoon.”

“Maybe that’ll be what you call their band, once they’re ready to perform.”

Another bout of laughter followed suit. The new automaton, now christened The Jon, still had his hands caught in Iris’s hair. She had to get Peter’s help in picking through the knots she couldn’t see, and once they had managed to free one hand, The Jon immediately pressed is face into the cloud of dark curls and cooed with satisfaction. The Spine winced, Rabbit laughed, and Peter groaned in frustration. Iris giggled, even though she knew that this would be an even bigger mess to untangle than his hands were.

Even in their first few moments together, The Jon had already captivated her. In the month and a half since Rabbit’s arrival, Iris had developed an avid fascination in watching a personality develop from the ground up. At times she wished she were a scientist, like Peter or Johona, just so she could have a reason to observe the automatons and take notes. She would have liked to record her observations somewhere. 

_ Rabbit: outgoing, bold, adventurous; few reservations, extremely affectionate _

_ The Spine: reserved, intelligent, sensible; often observes extensively before trying new things _

_ The Jon: so far, timid and gentle, but that could be said of anyone who had just awakened from the void _

Iris hadn’t really written any of it down, of course, but she had remembered. She was fairly well-versed in the art of memorizing people’s ways of life. It was only a necessity before; it wasn’t until Peter that she had taken to it with the extra note of enthusiasm that distinguished a pure fascination. She knew why that was, in his case. As for the automatons, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe the proclivity had been there all her life, but was only surfacing now because her life had changed. Could she say that definitively now? That her life had changed completely? She hoped so. It certainly felt like it had.

It would be an riveting journey, seeing the people that Peter’s machines would turn out to be. Even more so when the twins arrived.

* * *

The evening Johona returned to the manor with a manila envelope and a large paper bag of various light-colored yarns, nobody asked any questions. By the second week of december, all of the paraphernalia meant to cloak the house in the guise of a quarantine ward were gone, along with a few other things, courtesy of Rabbit. It was around then that talk of decorating began to circulate around the house. Peter pointed out that he had nothing of use stored anywhere in the house. He simply hadn’t had the time or priority to focus on decorating.

So the next evening, Johona returned with a massive bag of ribbons and garlands slung over her shoulder. The winter holidays were a time of happiness, she insisted, and she’d be damned if she couldn’t get her two dearest friends of the moment to enjoy them with her. She promised to have a Christmas tree within the week if no one made any effort to stop her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's what happened.  
> No time for a note today. Gotta sleep. Convention.  
> See you next chapter.


	24. Holiday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not writing any faster, so these updates are just not getting any more frequent, are they.  
> Fuckening. Here I am with another one.  
> At some point in the near past I breached 400 hits, which is really not impressive at all for a fanfiction of this size. Honestly I have no clue why I spend this much time or effort on something that clearly nobody cares about, but there is so little that gives me joy in life like drunk science and biological mishaps can. So now the internet has had to put up with it for almost a year now.  
> When did I start posting this? Last September? Yeah, it was last September. For the Quintessential drop date. I recall now. At this point I've kind of lost my ability to care whether or not the band hunts this down, reads it and gets scarred for life. In fact, I encourage it. Read it out loud and put that shit in your podcast. Happy drop date, guys. I hope you make me the indirect cause of the greatest scandal that our little robot cult has ever seen.  
> You're probably never going to find this or care about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure most people in the fandom aren't going to, either.  
> But I'm still here.  
> Do affectionate tummy kisses merit a content warning? Probably not. But some other elements of this chapter do. So...  
> CONTENT and TRIGGER WARNING: sudden LABOR PAINS toward the end, as well as NIGHTMARES and BRIEFLY DESCRIBED GORE. Be aware of those things.  
> Now let's move on.

 

Peter hadn’t made many plans for the holiday season that year. He hadn’t made any the year before, either. He’d barely made any plans at all since losing Delilah. There had never seemed to be enough reason to look forward to anything or put forth the effort that making plans required. If the cosmos decided that something would cross his path, then that was what would happen. Usually nothing changed. However, the past year had been anything but usual.

If he had still been in contact with anyone and they had happened to ask what his plans for Christmas Eve were, he wouldn’t have had an answer. And if he had, it definitely wouldn’t have been spending the evening with a seven-foot-tall christmas tree in the parlor that his charismatic friend had somehow managed to convince a cab driver to drag back to his house, baking holiday pastries with his week-old automaton under the guidance of his maid, listening to that same charismatic friend telling stories to the his other two automatons in the next room while he was simultaneously in love with that same maid of his and a few short weeks away from giving birth to twins.

It wasn’t at all what he would have had in mind, but he wasn’t complaining.

“Here, like this,” Iris instructed The Jon, whose hands were buried up to the wrist in a lump of dough.  _ Thank heavens she thought to bind his fingers up with cheesecloth first _ , he thought to himself while he watched the maid gently guide the automaton’s hands through the motions of kneading. His joints would have been absolute torture to clean.

The Jon watched the motion with a laughably dramatic level of intensity, then seamlessly continued the moment that she let him go. He kneaded for a short while, then stopped to look over his shoulder at Iris and give her a brilliant smile. “I... I did it!” he excitedly cried.

“You certainly did,” Peter replied with a lilt of laughter. “I think you might be almost as fast a learner as Iris!” He cast a sideways glance at her, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

Iris giggled. “Oh, please. You don’t have to flatter me so much.”

“Really? Then I suppose that three pairs of gloves must have magically knitted themselves.”

Her subtle giggle blossomed into a full-blown laugh. Iris rolled her eyes while muttering a “Dear god, Peter” that was probably supposed to sound exasperated, but honestly didn’t.

“S-so what shape are we gonna make these ones into?” The Jon asked while he continued to energetically knead the dough. “I like that part the best!”

“They’ll be circles first,” Iris explained, “and then we’re going to make a braid around the edge and turn them into little wreaths, like the one Johona put on the front door.”

“A braid? Like the one your hair is in?”

Iris ran a floury hand over the tight weaving of the French braid that kept the wild coils of her hair in check. “Exactly.”

“Good! I like braids.”

“I think it’s worth asking how long the last batch has been in the oven,” Peter mentioned, glancing toward the wood-burning stove.

Iris gasped a little in surprise. “I nearly forgot about those!”

“It’s fine, I can get them,” he casually replied. 

“Are you sure?” Iris seemed concerned when she asked.

“I’m the one who offered to help you in the first place.”

“Alright,” she agreed. “The oven mitts are at the end of the counter.”

Peter took note and slid the mitts onto his hands as he ambled across the kitchen to the wood-burning stove. That part of the task was easy enough. Crouching to get the hatch open was another matter entirely. Peter had to kneel to get himself to the right level, then once he’d rescued the tray of  gingerbread cookies from their fiery prison and shut the hatch again, he realized that getting up back to his feet and keeping the full tray level at the same time would be a bit of an issue.

Then, at a moment’s notice, Iris was there with a dishtowel draped over her hands. Peter begrudgingly surrendered the tray to her, then with a huff of effort, staggered back into an upright position. He had to stay still for a second while he waited for his breath to return to him, one hand pressed against his spine to stave off the nearly-constant ache in his lower back.

Iris cocked her head to the side and fixed her employer with a concerned gaze.  “Um... I-if you’re tired, I really wouldn’t mind just having the Jon help me finish.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he assured her. “We’re nearly done as it is. Only one more recipe, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

As it was with the last recipe, Iris left up to him the task of throwing ingredients for cinnamon-praline rolls together in a bowl and getting the preliminary mixing done. It was definitely better for her to be the one who cut the dough and put the actual pastries together. Not only that, but she had The Jon on her heels as well, who was beyond eager to know what she was doing. She was happy to teach him, of course. It was probably better this way, he thought; baking _was_ one of her several areas of expertise, and she had a great deal more patience than he did in his current state. He wasn’t sure how much teaching he would be able to do when it felt like a chore just to stand upright and move around. Johona had warned him some months ago that it would be like this eventually.

He remained quiet for a while as he went about reading the recipe and putting together what his part of the process required. For the moment, he was content just to watch Iris and The Jon as they set about cutting and shaping the pastries. He became tense for a second when she handed his newest automaton a glass, though he quickly saw that he had no real reason to worry. Though The Jon nearly paralleled Rabbit in his level of curiosity, he possessed a much more delicate touch than his sister, evident in how carefully his sticky, cheesecloth-covered hands held the glass and used it to carve out circles from the flattened dough on the cutting board.

“You’re doing a fantastic job!” Iris praised him. “Just try to be a little more even. We want to use as much of a single sheet as we can.”

“Okay, Iris.” Moving just a little slower, he began stamping out circles in neat rows.

Iris watched her protege with a satisfied smile on her face before she glanced sideways at Peter. “How is the next recipe going?”

“It’s going,” he replied. “I think I’ve nearly got it together. Only a few more things to add.”

“Alright.” Iris paused for a moment, tentatively nibbling at her lip. “Um... would you like to take a break?” she shyly asked. “After you’ve finished, of course. I wouldn’t want to stop you in the middle of something.”

An exhaustive breath rushed from Peter’s lungs before he could stop it. “You know... I want to say no, but...” He shrugged. “There’s really no point in trying to deceive you.”

“It’s no matter, really. If you’re feeling tired, you should rest.”

“This must be more baking than you’ve ever done in a single day. You’re sure you’ll be okay finishing all of this on your own?”

“I already said we’re nearly finished. Besides-”

“The dough is all in circles, Iris!” The Jon interrupted. He leaned over Iris’s shoulder, tugging at her sleeve and smearing flour onto her dress. “Now what do we do?”

She stifled a giggle. “Besides,” she continued, “I have The Jon here to help me.”

The automaton grinned, affectionately bumped his head against Iris’s,  then glanced at Peter. Little else was required to convince him. “Right. I’ll just... finish mixing this, then.”

It didn’t take long at all for Peter to finish blending together his ingredients as much as a wooden spoon could combine them. Iris gratefully took the bowl from him to set to kneading while her mechanical assistant was busy spooning raspberry jam into the hollows of the little puff-pastry wreaths. “I really appreciate your giving me a hand with all of this,” she said.

“It was the least I could do.” 

Peter’s words weren’t at all far from the truth. The past weeks had been, if anything, difficult. Though the mysterious episodes had still not returned, the twins had continued to develop. In the meantime, his belly had grown even more massive than it already was and almost unbearably heavy. Peter couldn’t recall ever feeling more fatigued in his life. Iris and Johona had taken care of just about anything and everything that he couldn’t do for himself. And somehow, in addition to all of that, they had taken it upon themselves to decorate the manor as well. They had the automatons to help them now, but that still didn’t change the subtle guilt that had taken up residence in Peter’s core. He wasn’t used to being waited on so constantly, and the whole situation still didn’t quite feel right. It was normal; Johona had told him so, anyway. Women who were close to their due dates always had to be catered to. Common courtesy in a difficult time, she said. For a man in the same position, though... Peter wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Iris smiled at him and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, leaving a smattering of flour on his sleeve. “Just go sit down for a while. Standing around like this can’t be comfortable.”

It wasn’t, and Peter was far past the point of arguing. He left the kitchen for the parlor. A warm, smoky smell pervaded in the air, and he heard the soft crackling of the fireplace just behind the sound of the low, measured voice that Johona always used when she was telling stories.

“Most people claim that Christmas is the day that Jesus was born, but looking at historical facts, as well as some circumstantial details in that chapter of the bible, a number of theories have arisen that raise the suspicion that this was never the case. For instance, when Christianity was in the process of spreading throughout Europe, there were already several pagan religions that existed among the natives in the area. Germanic and Nordic peoples had a celebration, which they called  _ Yule _ , that took place in the middle of winter-”

Johona sat cross-legged in front of the fire, the coffee table pushed aside so both Rabbit and The Spine could see her while she spoke. She didn’t break her stride when he stepped into the room, but glanced toward the doorway when he appeared, acknowledged his presence with a smirk, and went right back into her tirade. The Spine, entranced by her words, barely noticed his inventor stepping in. Rabbit, on the other hand, looked up at him from her corner of a sofa and grinned. She quickly tugged a throw blanket from the back of the sofa where she sat, threw it across her legs, and lifted Kepler, who had been nibbling on the edge of the cushion beside her, into her lap. The rabbit hadn’t been taking up very much space, but Peter understood what his creation meant. He settled himself down into the opposite corner of the sofa, though it took a considerable amount of shifting to actually get comfortable.

“Ho-how are you?” Rabbit asked in a soft voice he’d never heard her use before.

“I’m alright,” he whispered back. 

That seemed to be enough of an answer for her, and she turned her attention back to Johona. Several more minutes passed before she finally reached the end of her story- though by what Peter had heard, it seemed to be more of a lecture than anything else.

“But by our time in history, it’s become commonplace. Very few People are aware of the holiday’s actual roots. Humans have a tendency to believe what they’re told, and go along with whatever seems popular, which is likely the reason why Christmas has become as prevalently celebrated as it is.”

There was a short silence before Peter said, “I certainly hope I didn’t miss anything important.”

“Nothing I haven’t already told you,” his friend tossed back. “I recall giving you the exact same speech the first year we met.”

“And history repeats itself.” He glanced back and forth between his automatons. “It makes me wonder what got the three of you to this point.”

“Johona was telling us about mythology,” The Spine explained. “First she told us this story about the first goddess and her twins, the sons of the sun and water gods. Then I started wondering about seasons, because she told us that the story she told us could only be told during winter, so then there was the story about why winter exists, where Hades took Persephone into the underworld and got Demeter angry. And then I asked about Christmas, and she was in the middle of that when you came in.”

“That much? I must have been gone quite a while.”

“It wasn’t that long.” The Spine paused, contemplating his own words. “What can be called a long time, anyway?”

“I think that’s a matter of perspective,” Johona replied.

While the two of them carried on, Rabbit glanced over at Peter, a smile still lingering on her face. “The f-f-first story made me th-think of you,” she murmured.

“How so?” Peter felt the need to ask.

She opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, but her gears shuddered and she quickly lost her momentum. “I d-d-do-don’t think I should say w-why. I don’t wanna c-con-confuse Th’Spine.”

“It’s probably better that way, then.” She didn’t need to explain any further. He could make a fairly decent guess at what about the story had struck Rabbit as familiar. It was sweet of her to have thought of him, though.

“S-s-omethin’ did come up, though,” she went on. “Something I th-th-thought of, while Jo was tellin’ us stories. I r-reme-me-member what you told me before, though, an’ i-i-i-it’s... it’s about... y’know.”

Peter glanced at Johona, who still kept The Spine spellbound with their conversation. “Hey, Jo,” he said, “Iris was putting the pastry wreaths together when I left the kitchen, and I think I remember The Jon saying something about how he wanted his brother to see his work. He’s gotten quite excited about learning to bake.”

Johona raised her eyebrows. “Did he, now?” she asked. Something told Peter that she had overheard some bits and pieces of Rabbit’s conversation.

“He did,” Peter restated. “He’s already had Rabbit in to see what he did with the gingerbread, and The Spine hasn’t seen anything he made yet, so he wanted it to be fair.”

She glanced at The Spine, who now seemed intrigued. “Alright,” she said. “There was something that I needed his help with, anyways, and The Jon might as well tag along. He might be able to help, too.”

“Lovely.”

“Don’t get too comfortable, though. Remember that dinner is in an hour, and I won’t have you arriving late after all the work we’ve put into it.”

“I won’t forget,” he replied. “Not like you’d let me anyways,” he muttered under his breath after she was out of earshot. With that, he turned his attention to Rabbit. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“It was j-j-j-jus’ a question I had,” she said. “W-well.... R-r-really, it was a question The Sp-spine had, and it g-g-g-got me thinkin’ about other stuff. Y’see, w-when Jo was tellin’ us those stories, about the t-twins of the sun an’ water gods, and then P-P-Persephone an’ all that, Th-the Spine asked what all the w-w-words she was saying meant. Like “s-son” and “daughter” and stuff. I w-wanted to ask, b-b-b-but he did before I could. She.... she.... Sh-she said that it’s k-kinda like... if s-someone makes you an’ takes care of you, then that makes them your p-parent.”

“Something like that,” Peter said. “It gets a little more complicated, but that’s the basis of what it means.”

“J-Johona told us a little ab-bout it. W-what I really wanted to kn-know was w-w-what that makes me an’ m-my brothers.”

“Hm.” Peter scratched pensively at the back of his head. “That’s a bit of a complicated question.”

“D-d’you think you can answer it, though?”

For some time, Peter couldn’t figure out what to say. He hadn’t anticipated that any of his inventions would be asking a question like this, but then again, he had never planned on creating anything that was apparently capable of independent thought and emotion. “Well...” he mused, still groping for a place to start. “I, er... I suppose, in a manner of speaking... I am the one who created the three of you. And the way you turned out, it also falls to me to care for you... to teach you about life, and what I know. So, in a manner of speaking, I guess you could say I’m your father.”

The statement itself was small, but it seemed to bring Rabbit some sense of profound delight. Her eyes lit up, and her face twitched into a smile. “You’re m-m-my... father?” she echoed.

“Is that what you’d like to call me from now on?” he asked.

“I... I’d li-li-li-like that,” she breathlessly replied. “H-hey, um... Peter... if you’re my father, an’ you’re m-my brothers’ father, then w-w-what about them?” She pointed at his belly, face still lit with curiosity.

For a second, he felt thrown. “The twins?” he numbly asked.

“Y-yeah, the little humans! You’re m-making them, like you did w-wi-with me an’ my brothers. Does that m-m-make you their f-father, too?”

“I...” All of a sudden, a sinking feeling had overtaken Peter’s core. He knew what the answer was; his version of it, anyway. Rabbit, though, seemed to be on an entirely different wavelength. He was sure that Johona had explained the concept of parenthood to be something far beyond the biological definition. That was simply the way she did things, and in its own context, it made some sense, but it made a simple subject so much harder to explain. “Let me put it like this. Do you remember what Johona and I told you about the difference between the two kinds of humans, male and female?”

“F-fe-females are the ones that are s-s’posed to do w-what you’re doing, r-r-right?”

“Right. Because that’s the way things are generally supposed to be... This might sound silly to you, but you remember the first goddess and Demeter from Johona’s stories. There’s a different name for females who make and take care of people.”

“M-mothers.”

Peter’s jumbled nerves took over, and he let slip a fluttery laugh. “I was thinking, in a sense, that you might be able to call me their mother, just because of the part that I’m playing in the whole process.”

“B-but, b-b-ba-basically... it’s the same thing, i-is-isn’t it?”

“Not exactly. You see, the term  _ father _ usually doesn’t mean the parent who...” He cut himself short and sighed. “The small details don’t matter all that much to you, do they?”

Rabbit shook her head. 

“Then you could say that I’m a father to the twins.”

“D-d-does that mean they’re my brothers, too?” she went on to ask. “B-be-because you made them like you m-m-m-made me an’ Th’Spine and Th’Jon.”

Peter felt his heart fill with warm static. He’d never thought of it that way before. “I... yes. Yes, if you think of it like that. In a way, they  _ are _ your brothers.”

At that, Rabbit seemed to glow even brighter than before. Her gears hummed and she shivered with excitement, urging Kepler to hop out of her lap and scurry under the coffee table. “Wow. W-w-wow, I can’t believe it! I-I-I’m s-so happy!” she gushed, bouncing lightly on the cushion. “I-I’m g-g-gonna have more b-brothers! I’m g-gonna have more brothers!” In her frenzy, she leaned across the couch to hover over her inventor’s immensely swollen abdomen. She smiled down at him, then laid her gloved hand over his midsection, all the while incoherently murmuring, “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod...”

It didn’t take long at all for the twins to react to the sudden disturbance. At the first sign of contact, one of them squirmed, then the other. He would have bruises from this, he was sure; it had happened to him far more than once now. Peter’s body had been running out of space for some time, and when the twins moved, he felt it more than ever. He knew Rabbit was trying to be gentle, but that didn’t change how much it hurt when the little creatures inside him acted up. “Easy,” he told her. “Easy there, Rabbit.” He tried to sound calm, but he couldn’t keep himself from wincing.

In a flash and a grinding of gears, Rabbit was sitting back on her heels, totally aghast with her face drawn in concern and her hands to herself. “D-d-did I hurt you?” she asked.

“N-no,” Peter quickly replied. “It wasn’t you. It’s just... try not to rile them up. They aren’t as small as they used to be.” Even as he spoke, the both of them could see the vague shapes that rose and fell along the surface of his belly. The twins hadn’t stopped kicking, even for a second, and it was likely that they wouldn’t until they had tired themselves out. Peter took a deep breath, watched and waited for them to calm down. 

Rabbit did the same for a while, but her concerned expression quickly faded and was overtaken by a gleeful smile. Tentatively, she inched her way across the couch to sit closer to Peter, and cautiously poked at one of the protruding lumps. “Hey. S-stop hurting our father,” she playfully scolded them. “He’s t-t-tryin’ to take care of you.”

Her reprimands did nothing to change them, of course. 

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. In his state, Peter couldn’t bring himself to move, but Rabbit perched on her knees and looked over the back of the couch. “Hi, Iris!” she cheerfully called out.

At the mention of the maid’s name, the twins suddenly decided to behave themselves and cut down on their merciless squirming.  _ Not a moment too soon _ , he thought to himself as Iris rounded the corner and came into view.

She smiled when their eyes met. “The baking’s finished,” she said as she settled down beside him. “How are you feeling?”

Peter sighed heavily and rested a hand atop his enormous stomach. “Like I’m going to pop,” he sardonically replied.

“B-but you’re not g-g-going to, right?” Rabbit asked, suddenly horrified. She glanced at Iris. “Th-tha-that’s not r-r-r-really gonna happen, is it? He’s n-n-not actually g-gonna pop?”

“I’ll try not to,” Peter said, trying not to laugh.

Rabbit didn’t seem all that reassured, but she dropped the subject. For the next few minutes, she and Iris carried the conversation. Peter felt too worn to think of anything worth grasping anyone’s interest, so he was content to listen to them. The conversations of others had always been somewhat soothing to him. Even if he didn’t listen entirely, there was something deeply reassuring about them. 

They were cut short, though, by the sound of heavy metallic clanking as something clattered through the front door. Iris stood up to attend to the mystery, but before she could even reach the doorway to the foyer, The Spine stumbled in, toting a giant cardboard box. With a huff of steam, he lowered it to the floor and straightened up again. “Rabbit, Jo said I should ask for you to come out to the porch,” he said. “She needs your help bringing the other one in.”

“Th-the other... what?” Peter sputtered in surprise. “What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know. I g-g-guess I’ll just have to ask J-Jo,” Rabbit replied as she bounced off of the couch and followed her brother outside.

Almost as soon as they had left, Johona appeared, balancing another box on her hip, this one considerably smaller than the one her friend’s invention had just hauled in. The Jon followed, holding an identical package, which he placed on top of the one his brother had brought.

“Johona,” Peter said in a warning voice, “would you care to tell me why are my automatons bringing giant boxes into the parlor?”

“Because you’re terrible at planning,” she flippantly replied. “And because you’ve been confined to the manor all this time, so you couldn’t do this yourself.”

“But... what are they?”

Before he’d even finished the sentence, Rabbit staggered into the room with the final gigantic box. “That thing’s heavy!” she exclaimed. “What’s in it? More b-b-brothers?”

“Not currently,” was Johona’s answer, and it only served to confuse Peter even more.

“Jo, I know you’re probably trying to surprise me, but I really think that being surprised is  _ not _ something that I need right now.”

“No pun intended, but you would be surprised.” Peter scoffed at that, so she gave up her charade. “Just open the boxes and you’ll understand.”

It seemed simple enough. With a hand from Iris, the engineer got to his feet and approached the stack of packages. Johona produced a paring knife from the hidden pocket of her skirt and handed it to him, which he used to slice through the thick twine that held them together. He pulled back the edges of the cardboard and gasped. “Jo... Johona, this is...”

“Open the other one,” she instructed.

Peter handed the knife to Iris, who did just as Johona said. The exact same thing rested inside. A boxlike structure, constructed from spindles of wood stained a warm oak brown. Thick wooden slats, meant to be placed across the base of the box. What looked to be sturdy, decoratively carved legs corresponding to the corners. Peter anxiously ripped into one of the smaller boxes to find a little down mattress rolled up and bound with twine, which he unwound to discover a small collection of bolts and dowels stuffed into the center of the mattress and packaged neatly in a paper bag.

“I asked the retailer to deconstruct them a bit, so they would be easier to transport,” Johona explained. “Rabbit and The Spine can bring them upstairs, and all of us are pretty handy with tools. I’d say putting them together won’t be too difficult.”

Peter was dumbfounded. His gaze flicked randomly back and forth, between his friend and the disassembled cribs that rested in the boxes before him. “Y-you didn’t have to do this,” he stammered. “How much did these cost you? A-and you brought them all this way... the cab fare must have cost you a fortune...”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, abruptly cutting him off. “Consider it my gift for you this year.”

“It’s a bit extravagant, even for a gift.”

“Alright, I’ll admit that I knew the carpenter through a personal connection, so he was willing to cut the prices down, but that’s all I’ll tell you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and grinned proudly. “What can I say? I was thinking ahead.”

“I-I know you were, but... where are we going to put them?”

“That’s already been sorted out. I asked Rabbit and The Spine to move some of the furniture around while you were in the lab.”

“And they did that without breaking anything?”

“Mostly,” The Spine said, a bit sheepishly.

“Look, I was t-t-trying to be careful, b-but I d-did-didn’t realize the bedframe-ame was so wide!” Rabbit interjected.

“It was just a dent in the wall, I’ve already spackled it over, and I’ll get the paint next time I’m in town,” Johona finished for them.

“Rabbit, you dented the...” Peter started, but he cut himself short and exhaled his frustration. “Alright. So you moved the furniture out of one of the rooms. Which one was it?”

His friend glanced around the room for a moment, as if anticipating a reaction. “It was mine.”

“Yours? Then where are you going to stay?”

“There are other rooms in the house, Peter. I can get along just about anywhere, but I thought you might want to have them close to you. You know...” She lowered her voice. “In case they need you.”

“And where did you put the things that you moved?”

“There was one that happened to have enough space for another bed in it, so we allocated a few things. That was it, though. We left all the rest where it was.”

“Right.” Peter glanced over at Iris, who didn’t appear to be even half as surprised as he was. She met his gaze and shrugged before half a smile twitched to life on her face. 

“Well... it sounded like a good idea,” she said.

“Wait.” For a second, he was perplexed. Then it hit him. “Did you know about this?”

“In a sense,” she replied. “Johona told me about what she had in mind, so we collaborated on it.”

“You mean to say... oh god, you didn’t pay for this yourself, did you?”

“It was a joint effort.”

“Iris...”

“I know what you’re thinking, Peter,” she calmly said, placing her hand over his on the edge of the box. “But they’re my responsibility as much as they are yours. I want to do as much as I can for them. Even before... well, you know.” They both understood, though she couldn’t directly allude to the twins with two blissfully ignorant automatons in the room.

“I really shouldn’t have expected anything different from you,” Peter surrendered. “You’ve always been so eager.”

Iris let out a faint, fluttering sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that all was forgiven. With the presentation over, Johona called on the automatons and instructed them to bring the boxed-up cribs to their appointed room before disappearing into the kitchen to start her other contribution to the night. She was surprisingly quick, and in little more than half an hour, she was calling her two friends into the dining room. 

Dinner was long. The spirit of the night encouraged their conversation to spin further and further on. Iris’s pastries came afterwards, and those were carried upstairs to what would from then on be known as the twins’ room. The next hour went to sorting out nuts and bolts, fitting pieces together and assembling the cribs. It might have gone more quickly if Rabbit hadn’t gotten into the plate of cinnamon praline rolls and stuffed one into her mouth, leaving a disastrous mess to be cleaned up in her jaw mechanisms and on the floor. That incident turned into a lengthy explanation to all three of the automatons as to why they couldn’t eat like they saw the humans doing because they didn’t have the right mechanisms for it or even a need for food in the first place, followed promptly by The Jon making the exact same mistake with a wreath pastry, necessitating a complete do-over of the whole scene.

The late hours of the evening saw all six of them having returned to the parlor, collapsed by the fire after that tiring ordeal. Iris had taken the helm for telling stories this time around. She had amassed quite a few from her travels all over the country. Most of them had been picked up from her colleagues, the immigrant maids who worked alongside her. Peter had heard a decent number of the stories before, as there were people at the Cavalcadium who had mentioned Old Befana or the Yule cat around the holidays, but the words she spun were certainly had the automatons fascinated. Even Johona seemed impressed.

She did, anyway, until she suddenly said, “Is anyone else going to say anything about the packages under the tree, or am I the first person to point this out?”

Iris paused a few sentences away from the end of another folktale and glanced toward the hastily decorated tree. Peter followed her gaze to find that there were, in fact, a handful of gifts encircling the skirtless metal stand that held the trunk in place. “Oh, dear,” she said. “How could we have forgotten about that?”

“It was probably a little easier with Jo’s grand presentation stealing the entire show,” Peter quipped.

“I only did it for you, Walter.”

He scoffed. “No matter. We’re already here, we might as well.”

The Jon was the first to crouch under the tree’s lowest branches and retrieve the small aggregation of boxes and bags. He and The Spine gathered them into a pile, which the three humans sorted amongst themselves. None of the items were all that big, and Johona was the only one who wound up with two gifts. Two small packages remained on the table, which she promptly handed to The Spine and The Jon.

The Spine took his time opening his small box, untying its ribbons with surgical precision. The Jon was nowhere near as cautious, tearing into his present with reckless abandon. Something fell out and hit the floor with a soft  _ flumph _ . He dove down to pick them up, then let out an elated squeal.

“G-Great Scott! I-I-It’s just what I asked for!” The automaton bounced back up into his seat, grinning madly and clutching a pair of Iris’s durably knit gloves in his hands. They were exactly like the ones that Rabbit used to pet Kepler, the only difference that The Jon’s were a warm off-white with specks of brown woven into the yarn.

The Spine glanced over at his brother, took one look at what was in his hands, then returned to his own present and pulled the lid off with renewed vigor. He gasped, steam rising from his vents, as he pulled out an identical pair of gloves, this one from jet black. “They’re perfect,” he remarked, awestruck.

“H-hey, would ya l-loo-look at that!” Rabbit leaned over towards her brothers, stretching her arms out toward them to display her own pair of gloves. “Now we all m-m-m-m-match!”

“And we can all hold Kepler now!” The Jon exclaimed. “I-I wanna do it first!” He all but flew to the space on the couch beside Rabbit, where Kepler was huddled on the arm. He paused for a moment, then slowed down and extended a hand for the rabbit to sniff.

While his little brother was busy, The Spine turned toward Iris, a glowing smile on his face. “Thank you so much.”

“You wanted to have soft hands like Rabbit, so... there you are.” The maid was trying to be nonchalant, but she couldn’t hide the proud sparkle in her eyes. 

Meanwhile, Johona had already opened both her gifts, and was now proudly sporting a newly knitted scarf and a copper coil bracelet. “Now, Peter, I knew you already had a pretty wide scope with metalwork,” she said, “But Iris, I’m honestly amazed that you managed to make a chevron pattern with two different yarns.” The scarf was, in fact, decorated with layers of jagged lines in a dusty sage green, as well as the same yarn as The Jon’s gloves. “How long have you known how to knit, again?”

“I-it’s not really that difficult,” Iris modestly replied instead of giving a real answer. “It’s only knitting and purling in the right places, and weaving the ends in cleanly enough that they don’t unravel.”

“Admit it, Iris. Even that can be a feat in itself,” Peter cut in. “You should open your gift next. You’ve certainly earned it.”

“Okay.” With careful, hesitant hands, Iris pulled the wrapping away from the small box that sat in her lap. Then the lid came away, there was a glimmer of polished metal, and Iris gasped in surprise. A tiny, intricate chain was piled up delicately under a pendant of tiny fused gears, copper, steel, and brass all burnished until they shone like sterling. Miniscule glass beads were welded into the work, glittering like homespun gems.

“Now, I have no idea what your taste in jewelry is,” he started to explain. “In fact, I don’t even know if you like jewelry at all. I knew exactly what to make for Jo, of course, but for you... well, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sort of made something up on my own.”

“Peter...” she breathed. “Peter, you didn’t have to...”

“Of course I did,” he contested. “After all you’ve done, how could I not give something back? Besides, I haven’t been spending as much time in the lab as much as usual because of... well, you know. I had to keep my skills in tune somehow.”

Iris seemed barely able to hear him at all. She was staring down at the necklace in her lap, her eyes glassy. For the longest time, she was speechless. Then, a faint, quavering murmur. “I... I-I don’t know what to say... I-I’ve never... It would be cruel not to accept it, but...”

“Iris?” Peter said softly, trying to catch her attention, but she gave him no response. She sounded almost as though she were about to cry. Only then did it occur to Peter that maybe Iris had never received a piece of jewelry before in her life.

He was stuck for a second, unsure what to say or do. Then, without thinking, he overlapped her hand with his. Finally, she looked at him, and he reached for the little pendant. “Here, I’ll do it,” he said as he carefully lifted the necklace from its box, draped the chain around Iris’s neck and fastened the clasp behind her head. The pendant fell just where he’d hoped it would, resting delicately just below her collarbone. He smiled, feeling almost pleased with his own work. “Perfect.”

Iris shivered, and her hand went to clasp the pendant between her fingertips. “Even on a maid?” she asked timidly.

“Not just any maid,” Peter corrected her. “It’s perfect on  _ you _ , Iris.”

At first, Iris stared blankly at him, then she giggled shamefully and turned away to gaze at the floor. For a split second, he could have sworn that he’d glimpsed a faint pink glow washing over her cheeks. From the other end of the room, Johona caught his gaze. She toyed with the end of her new scarf, her new bracelet clinking at her wrist, and a knowing smirk appeared on her face.

* * *

The days after Christmas must have been something of a blur to Peter. The days preceding probably were as well, since he had been giving in to fatigue and physical exhaustion with increasing frequency. The activity of the holidays must have been especially hard on him, though, because after Christmas Eve, he fell into a habit of sleeping quite a lot more than usual. 

Iris was the first to notice. When she brought it up with Johona, the nurse hadn’t shown an excess of concern. It was a normal phenomenon for those in the late stages, and the very reason that doctors most often would have already prescribed bed rest at this point. “He must be closer to his due date than I thought. It’s hardly surprising. He’s positively huge,” she had said. “It would probably be best to let him sleep however much he pleases. He’s certainly going to need it while he can get it.”

So Iris did. Her employer’s odd new circadian rhythm had little effect on how much they saw each other, as it was hardly any different from when he was still spending the majority of his time in the lab. The automatons had all been awakened for several weeks by then, and they had all learned fairly fast how to behave themselves. The Spine usually kept after Rabbit. The Jon was the only one who still needed any real supervision, and he had a tendency to follow Iris around as it was. There wasn’t much to worry about anymore in terms of keeping them in check. Occasional mishaps kept her busy with housekeeping as well.

Still, she worried. It seemed that was her job now, given the circumstances. Hardly a moment passed that she didn’t think of him, his perilously sensitive condition that he didn’t seem to mind, and the twins that he carried. Her twins, she often remembered. It made her chest ache with guilt whenever she recalled the promise that he had made to her so many months before, though the reason why seemed shaky at best. It was only an inkling. A subtle suspicion, nothing more. And yet it seemed to weigh like lead in the chambers of her heart. 

So many things had changed since she had arrived. Who was to say that he hadn’t changed his mind about giving them away?

The question went unanswered, though, because she never asked it. She wouldn’t dare make such an implication, and besides, Peter was rarely awake to answer it for her. If his decision about the twins had anything to do with his feelings towards her, she felt fairly sure that it had remained the same, since his affection for her hadn’t wavered. Even after so many months living in the same space, Iris still had yet to overstay her welcome. He was still always as pleased to see her as he ever was, and she still slept beside him at night, though nightmares seemed to have recently been at bay. If she felt bold, he permitted her to cuddle close to him and hold him for hours at a time. At times, he even asked for it himself.

She wanted to believe that all of it was because his affections were growing. She even let herself fantasize from time to time. But the action of asking him for the truth herself was far beyond her reach.

Even with as much time as he spent asleep, everyone was thankful that he made it a priority to stay awake with the rest of the household on New Year’s Eve. He hardly left his room at all before sunset that day, and neither Johona nor Iris blamed him for it. 

The evening was spent replenishing the pastry supply that had somehow been exhausted in the span of a single week (no one said anything, but Iris knew that her very pregnant employer was probably to blame), making eggnog and hot chocolate and enjoying it in the parlor while watching the clock and waiting for midnight to strike. The Spine asked Johona for an explanation for this holiday like the one she had given for the last one, Kepler fell asleep in The Jon’s lap, and Rabbit somehow set off an entire box of Christmas crackers at once, which exhausted half their supply of party favors. By some miracle, enough remained for each member of the party to have one to themselves before the stroke of midnight.

The Spine stared intently at the clock. “Is it midnight yet?”

“Not yet,” Peter told him. “There’s still a few minutes left.”

“How many? I can’t read Roman numerals.”

“You c-c-can’t read at all, d-dummy,” Rabbit interrupted.

“Hey, that’s not true! I can read a little!”

“It’s better than I can do,” The Jon mumbled.

“There’s three more minutes,” Johona cut in. “And remember what Peter said? You’ll know it’s midnight when the long and short hand move together and the chime goes off.”

“I remember what he said. I’m just excited. I want to know what happens when the year changes.”

“Nothing dramatic,” Peter said. “Only the first day of the next year begins, and we’re here to see it happen.”

The Spine hummed in acknowledgement. “Maybe. I still want to find out.”

“D-don’t people feel d-d-different at the start of a n-n-n-ne-new year?” Rabbit asked.

“Sometimes,” Johona replied. “And then they make promises that they don’t actually intend to keep for the rest of the year. They call those  _ resolutions _ .”

“R-r-res-resolutions?”

Johona’s explanation used up whatever remained of the minutes before midnight, and the chimes of the clock rang out. It played a short song, like the sound of chapel bells.

“Everyone, pull the strings apart!”

The bells were punctuated by the loud staccato  _ Pop! Pop! Pop!  _  of each Christmas cracker exploding and spilling its confetti contents all over the floor. It would be an endeavor to clean the next day, but in the moment, Iris was barely thinking of cleaning at all.

“Yay! It’s the new year now!”

“D-d-does anyone f-fe-feel any different?”

“I dunno. I feel the same. Do you feel different, Spine?”

“Not really. What about you, Rabbit?”

“I’ve g-got nothin’.”

“I know Kepler is certainly feeling  _ sleepy _ ,” Johona said, interrupting the automatons. It was true. Not a minute after being rudely awakened by the cacophony of Christmas crackers, the rabbit had once again rolled over in The Jon’s lap and started dozing off.

“Oh, boy. She really is,” the youngest automaton remarked, poking at the lethargic lump of fur that rested on his blanket-covered legs. “She woke up for a little bit, but I guess she doesn’t care much about the new year.”

“I think it’s probably a good time for her to be put back in her hutch for the night.” Johona stood up from her spot and stretched out her tall, limber frame. “I know that’s an idea I’m certainly on board with. The doctor wants me in by ten tomorrow morning.”

“Your manager is a tyrant,” Peter bemusedly said.

Johona ignored him as she crossed over to lift Kepler from the couch. “Remember that I was the one smuggling hospital supplies. I have to pay for that somehow,” she flatly responded.

“H-hey, Johona,” The Jon asked, “can I come with you to put Kepler to sleep?”

“Of course.”

“H-hey, I wanna say g-good-goodnight to her. Can I come too?” Rabbit cut in.

“I don’t see why not.” She turned to The Spine and gazed expectantly at him.

“W-well... I guess if Rabbit’s going, I’m in on this, too,” he said with a sigh.

“We’re off, then.” Johona leaned down to give Iris a quick embrace around the shoulders and ruffle Peter’s hair. “Be careful not to stay up too late, lovebirds.”

Iris felt her face immediately burst into flames. Beside her, Peter was frozen stiff and stammering madly. “I-I... I’m sorry, w-what did you just...”

Johona didn’t waste another second before leaving the room.“Goodnight!” she shouted over she shoulder as she disappeared into the hallway.

The Jon followed her, then The Spine. Rabbit stayed back for a moment, if only to send to send a soft-eyed, genuine smile in their direction before following her siblings.

“It’ve been wondering how she manages to get me alone with you so often,” Peter pointed out as soon as the room was empty. 

“I don’t particularly mind it,” Iris said, taking a sip of her slowly cooling eggnog. 

“Then forgive me if I find you pleasant to be around,” he replied, a lilt of laughter in his voice.

She giggled for a second, but quickly composed herself. “Um... there actually is something that I’ve been meaning to show you.”

“There is?” Peter tilted his head, looking intrigued. “Is it another scarf?”

Iris laughed again, remembering the striped accessory that she had gifted to him on Christmas Eve, woven from powder blue and the same charcoal grey she had used in Rabbit’s gloves. “It’s... well, it’s something like that.”

With that, she got up from the couch and made her way toward the tree. She felt Peter’s eyes on her with every step she took, and it only made the anticipation in her blood grow thicker. Her heart raced as she returned and handed him a sizable box. It was plain cardboard, no wrapping paper or ribbons. Iris had made a conscious decision not to wrap it. She had hoped he wouldn’t get the wrong idea from what happened to be nestled inside.

“I was still working on these by the time Christmas rolled around,” she explained as he lifted the lid. “I couldn’t stand waiting any longer to show them to you. In case... well, in case something happened, I suppose.”

Peter pushed aside a layer of tissue paper, let out a whispering breath, and reached into the box to lift up a pair of tiny powder blue socks. He gazed at them for a moment, his eyes bright with awe, rolling the knitting over in his fingers. He set the first pair down to lift another out of the box, then two more, and finally found a pair of small blankets folded up neatly at the bottom, crafted out of the softest yarn that she had been able to find wound up in patterns of pastel blue, lavender, green and yellow.

“Iris, how...” Peter murmured, looking over each piece with the scrutiny of an art critic. “How did you find the time to make all of these?”

“You could say that I was working with a purpose,” she answered. “I had to hold off on giving them to you, even after they were finished, just because I didn’t want any of the automatons to see. At least, not any of the ones who still don’t know.”

“They’ll know soon enough,” he said, setting down the blanket in his hands. “Dear god, how are we going to explain this to them?”

“We could always let Rabbit do it. I mean, as long as she leaves out the details.”

“ _ We _ left out most of the details, the way we told her.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “They don’t seem as suspicious as she did. If we play it off afterward as if someone else had carried them, it might be a little easier in the future.”

“And what if Rabbit says something?”

“She’s been good so far. I don’t know why she would.” He stopped, and suddenly the room was silent. Something clouded his eyes and he quickly looked away to stare at the floor.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Peter replied, a little too quickly. “N-no... it’s nothing, really. It’s just...” He stopped himself and sighed, burying his face in the palm of his hand. “Iris, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

In that moment, Iris felt her heart sink. “What is it?”

“It’s... Listen, it’s nothing, really. I only... It was this conversation that I had with Rabbit once, and... I slipped up in the way that I said some things, and now... Now she thinks of them as her brothers.”

“Who?” Iris already knew the answer. She almost didn’t want to hear him say it. If he said it out loud, that would make it real. And yet, she had asked the question anyway.

“The twins. She thinks they’re her brothers because of some stupid things I said, and now...” He paused, took a breath and looked Iris in the eyes. “This doesn’t change anything, though. I-I’ll sort all of this out, I’ll find a way to explain to her that-”

“It’s okay, Peter,” Iris said, her voice barely a whisper.

“What?”

“I said it’s fine. I understand.” 

It wasn’t fine. She felt like her soul was splintering with every word that left her lips. Her voice was dangerously close to breaking, almost letting Peter see how deeply this was hurting her. But she did understand. That much was true.

He took her hand in his, keeping his gaze locked with hers. “Iris, that isn’t what I’m saying. I’m not going to take this away from you.”

Iris swallowed past the lump congealing in her throat. “Then what will you do?”

“I’m still not sure,” he said, sounding despondent. “I know that there’s hardly any time left, and this is probably the worst time of any to be indecisive. But... once they’re born, I want the twins to have the best life they possibly can. And I know- I’m not sure how, but I just  _ know _ that best life would involve you.”

Iris tried to speak up, but all her lips were able to do was tremble. Her tongue stuck in her mouth, and her throat was stiff.

“Saying that didn’t fix anything, did it?”

She wanted to tell him that it did, but she couldn’t seem to do it.

“You’re still hurt.”

“N-no I’m not,” she choked.

Peter sighed, and without another word, he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He pulled her close, and Iris nuzzled her face in his shoulder. With a last shaky exhale, she finally let go of the ache that seized her tongue. 

“I know you didn’t mean it,” she whispered.

“I didn’t, but that doesn’t change the effect it had.” The room was quiet for a moment, and Iris was content to simply lean against Peter, holding onto him and breathing in his scent, until he spoke up again. “It doesn’t change what you’ve done for them, either. How did you figure out what size their feet would be, anyhow?”

Iris pulled away from him, laughing once again. “Well, most babies are the same general size.”

“You might be able to tell I don’t have the most experience with them,” he went on, reflecting her drowsy smile. “Or you might have used one of my bruises for a reference.”

“Now there’s an idea.” Laughing, Iris picked up one of her creations from the box and looked over at her employer, letting her eyes wander to the hem of his shirt. “Would you mind if I make sure my measurements are correct?”

“I only mind as much as you mind,” Peter assured her.

Iris sighed, smiling, and redirected her focus downward. Peter’s shirt hung off of him like a sail without a breeze, loose and formless everywhere except where the fabric strained across his massively swollen belly. Keeping the sock in the palm of her hand, Iris carefully lifted the hem of his shift. His skin had become a veritable map of bruises and stretch marks, and the glow beneath it was undeniably bright. Iris quickly chose one of the dark blue smears that denoted a bruise and held the sock up against it. “Yes, they’re just about right.”

Peter’s midsection shook as he laughed. “I don’t know how you can stand to look at me like this.”

“I didn’t know how you could stand the sight of my scars,” Iris responded. She softly brushed her hand over his skin, feeling its stretch and damage and warmth, and she felt a little thrill run down her spine. “Maybe it’s because you’re a different kind of person.” She looked up at him, feeling oddly hopeful.

“Maybe we’re both different,” he said, laying his hand over hers. She felt a gentle stirring under her palm. “That still doesn’t explain why you aren’t at least a little unnerved by the sight of me.”

“Why would I be unnerved by the man who’s giving me all I ever wanted in my life?” 

Iris hadn’t even thought before she spoke. She didn’t think either when she bent down to bring her face level with Peter’s bulging middle. She placed her hands on either side of his waist, caressing his skin with her thumbs for a second and feeling the flutter of movement beneath it, before she leaned forward and kissed his stomach, directly on a bruise just above his navel.

She felt a shudder as Peter let slip a breathless laugh. She pulled back, slid the hem of his shirt back down and patted his belly, as if completing a job well done. Then she looked up at him, and all of a sudden, she felt as though the entire world had stopped.

Peter’s eyes met with hers, and she felt something inside her melt. There was something captured there that she was sure she had never seen before. Not from any of the men she’d been seeing before the accident. Definitely not from any she had seen after. She couldn’t seem to place it. His face was faintly flushed and had the look of someone who had been smiling a mere second earlier, yet something had suddenly changed. He seemed confused, almost surprised. Iris couldn’t be sure what exactly she was seeing. She was certain, though, that her face looked the exact same way.

“I-Iris...” he stuttered softly. “Iris, would you... i-if I were to...”

She was listening, but he didn’t seem to be saying anything. Her pulse was pounding in her ears. She was leaning forward. So was he. Their limbs were already overlapped. So close. Involuntarily, she drew closer. The warmth of his skin ghosted over hers. She could taste his breath on her lips. They were only inches apart. What would happen if she took a few away? What if she took away all of them? What if-

“Ah!”

Peter gasped and reeled back. Iris froze. For a second, she thought it was something she had done. Then she noticed that her employer was doubled over, panting and clutching his stomach.

“Oh, god,” she said. “Peter, are you alright?”

He took a few labored breaths, whimpered softly, and said, “I... I think so. It’s only... ow.... agh, that was incredibly sudden.”

_ So it’s another episode _ , Iris thought. She saw the light inside him gently pulse. Unsure what else to do, she placed her hand on Peter’s shoulder and rubbed the back of his neck. “Is it bad?” she asked. “Do you need me to get Johona?”

“N-no, I don’t think that’s necessary. It... really isn’t... that bad. It’s only...” He inhaled sharply and groaned. “This hasn’t happened in a while.”

“It hasn’t?” That didn’t sound right to her. 

“No, not since.... Since the really bad one... ah...” Peter’s chest heaved as he tried to speak. “I think... it’ll be over... before too long.”

And, after a few minutes of gritted teeth, heavy breathing and quiet curses, it was. Iris had offered her hand to Peter, and he had gladly taken it. She wasn’t sure which of them was holding the other more tightly.

“I think maybe it’s time we get some sleep,” she finally said. “You’re going to want to be rested if this happens again.”

“Y-you’re probably right,” Peter agreed. If his wilting posture were any sort of clue, she guessed that he was probably being hit by another wave of fatigue. She had figured that his few hours of alertness had to end at some point.

With some considerable effort, Iris helped Peter up from his place on the couch. His legs were still shaky from the episode, and he had to lean on her shoulder as they made their way up the stairs and down the hall to his room. Iris left him briefly alone to change, then returned in her nightdress to crawl into bed next to him. She pressed herself as close as she could to the mass of pillows that surrounded him.

And just like that, his arm had appeared. It was unexpected, and Iris was almost startled by the feeling of his skin brushing over hers. Then she recognized his long, nimble fingers intertwining with hers, guiding her hand to where his shoulder was hidden behind the mass of pillows. 

Peter’s left eye peered benevolently over the horizon of the pillow at her, and for a moment, she thought she saw a touch of that same emotion she had witnessed in the parlor.

“Goodnight, Iris,” he said softly.

Iris traced her fingers over his shoulder before closing her eyes. “Goodnight. And Happy New Year, too.”

* * *

The room wasn’t as dark as Peter thought it should be. 

He stared blankly at the ceiling. The space around him was illuminated by a bright blue glow. It wasn’t unlike the one he himself emitted. It was the very same. But it had never been strong enough to light up an entire room. Something about the whole situation didn’t seem right.

Peter was lying on his back. He didn’t know how he had gotten that way, because there were so few positions that he could fall asleep in, and none of them involved him being sprawled out like this. He felt a crushing weight on his spine, and his chest felt compressed, heaving and struggling to encompass every breath he took. The arrangement of pillows that kept him in place were nowhere in sight. They must have been shoved off the bed and onto to the floor when he turned over. He must have been tossing quite violently for that to have happened. How had Iris not noticed him moving? He reached his arm out to the side, searching for Iris’s warmth beside him, only to find that the sheets were cold.

Iris wasn’t there. Peter turned his head to the side, still unwilling to believe she was gone. The sheets were smooth beside him, and there were no more pillows than the ones that supported his own head. There was no sign of her ever having been there at all.

Peter’s pulse began to speed. This wasn’t right. None of it was. And all the while, the writhing feelings inside of him hadn’t stopped.

As his chest heaved for its next gasp of air, Peter’s breath caught in his throat. Instinctually, his hands were drawn to his stomach and he ran his palms over his hot, scar-riddled skin. It felt thin, translucent. The twins were kicking relentlessly, straining against the barrier. He craned his neck to try and look down at himself only to end up squinting at the light. His midriff glowed like a fluorescent light, so bright that it barely looked like a part of him anymore. 

He gasped as a bolt of pain shot through every nerve in his body.

Peter reeled back against the pillows and let out a strangled scream. Not even a second passed before another wave hit him even harder, then another, then another in a fast, endless succession with no differentiation, no divide between where one burst of agony ended and another began. Peter didn’t even bother trying to keep his reactions in check this time. He screamed, clawing at his stomach, thrashing on top of the sheets, forcing air out of his collapsed lungs as hard as he could. He screamed over and over until his throat was raw.

But still, he was alone. 

Still, the merciless squirming inside of him did not cease.

They were hurting him. This was not the result of any sort of distress, nothing like the frantic and confused kicking that he’d felt before. The creatures inside him were straining, pushing harder and harder against the barriers that held them. The pain was sharp and biting, stabbing at him from the inside like swallowed razors.

_ This can’t be happening _ , Peter thought desperately.  _ This can’t be how it’s supposed to go. _

His ears were met with a wet, sickening  _ snap _ as his skin split open.

“Peter...”

He screamed. There was so much blood. Dear god, why was there so much blood?

“Peter!”

He still screamed, but he wasn’t the only one anymore.

“Peter, you’re dreaming! Open your eyes!”

He obeyed without question.

The room was just as dark as he remembered this time. The pillows were all there, the sheets tangled around him, his shirt and hair damp with sweat. Reality was hazy, but he could just barely perceive the shadow that hovered over him. Cool, dry hands cradled his head and stroked his face. 

“It’s okay, Peter,” Iris said. “It’s over. You’re awake now. It’s gone.”

His chest shuddered with every breath he took. She was right, it was over. But the pain still hadn’t gone away.

“I...Iris...” he groaned.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m right here. You’re safe now.”

Seconds passed aimlessly while he tried to catch his breath, mumbling incoherently, reaching blindly for the maid next to him. She drew as close as she could. He was burning up again, he could feel it, but she didn’t seem to be afraid. He found her hip in the darkness, grasped at her nightdress and buried his face into her. He was still gasping for air, and his position only made it harder, but he didn’t care. He just didn’t want to be alone anymore.

Gently, Iris pushed him back. Peter felt himself being eased into a new position, the assembly of pillows falling into line around him. Iris still held him, whispering reassurances and running her fingers through his hair. He felt her hand caress his throbbing stomach, felt her lips press against his forehead. Finally his breath returned to him. She molded her body against his under the sheets. His hand grazed absently over her waist. He needed her close. He needed  _ her _ .

Iris’s hand graced his cheek. Her callused thumb wiped away tears that he didn’t remember shedding. She kissed his forehead again, then moved down. Her lips found his left cheek, then his right. Peter’s fingertips brushed her collarbone, and just for a second, even in the hazy, incoherent darkness, he thought he saw her eyes. Then his own fluttered closed again. 

All Peter sensed was warm, dark and quiet. In the nothingness, Iris’s mouth met with his.

Everything faded away after that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after falling asleep twice, I am at long last joined by my cat, who will maybe cuddle me to sleep for the third and final time. I'm not even up as late now as I usually am. I've discovered in recent years that, when properly occupied, I can go for a while with no sleep.  
> Sadly, reading puts me out like nothing else.  
> I hope this puts you to sleep as well.  
> See you next chapter.


	25. The Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAVE I BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME?!  
> I promised myself that I would be done with this before the end of the summer.  
> Here we are, in July.  
> Over a month since my last update.  
> Still not finished writing. Somehow my pace got cut down to a page or two a week. I don't know what the hell happened, but it had better stop, because I want this to have a conclusive ending. I don't want to fuck up again like I did with my last long story. I don't care how detached or dead inside I am, I'm gonna fucking finish this story.  
> I don't know how many people have jumped ship at this point just because I haven't posted anything lately, if there were ever any people on this ship at all. Probably nobody even cares that I've been gone for so long. And yet here I am, still talking. Honestly, on the internet, I have no one to impress but myself.  
> Holy shit, I'm pathetic.  
> Anyway, I haven't bothered with tumblr plugs or thanks in ages, just because I've been lagging so much that most of my friends haven't seen much of this trash heap in a long time since I've had nothing new to present to them. But still, if cicada_s and volatileSoloiste are still out there, thanks for ever bothering with me at all.  
> SOME CONTENT WARNINGS I FORGOT TO ADD: mention of vomit, intense labor pains, mention of impending gore, fighting about medical procedures, and as always, the weirdest shit the SPG fandom will ever read.  
> Bye.

 

The night proceeded without sleep.

Exhaustion dragged Peter under when he woke up the first time, but it didn’t last. Barely any time had passed before he found himself awake again, shaken from sleep by the pain that still wracked his body. His stomach ached, and the sharpness of it made him feel sick and left him deeply regretting having eaten so late the night before. He tried to remain still this time, let Iris sleep until it wore off and he could join her in dreaming again, but the onslaught never ended. It wasn’t long before she had woken up and found him curled up and twitching in agony beside her. He had his wits about him this time, and he told her what was wrong. Don’t go to Johona just yet, he asked her. Wait until sunrise, at least, and send for her if things haven’t gotten better by then.

They didn’t, of course. By the time the grey light of morning began to edge its way over the horizon, he’d vomited twice, and the pain in his core hadn’t faded at all. The twins had woken up along with him, and now were as restless as ever, which made things that much worse.

Iris wasn’t gone long at all before she reappeared with his friend in tow. The nurse swept through the door, somehow imposing while still in a sleeping shift. “Alright, what’s happened?” she asked briskly.

“I woke up and felt like an episode was coming on,” Peter said shakily. “It’s been hours, though, and it hasn’t gone away. It was bad enough to make me sick. I haven’t been able to sleep since it started, and neither has Iris.”

Johona glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “I wasn’t just going to leave him alone,” Iris quickly explained.

The nurse sighed and returned her attention to her friend. She hesitated a moment before she spoke. “I’m not sure what to tell you,” she said. “All I can think is that this must mean you’re nearly there.”

Her words took but a second to sink in, and Peter felt as if he’d run headlong into a brick wall after everything else that he’d already been through. “Wha... what?” he sputtered. 

“If the pain has lasted this long, it must be a sign that the twins won’t be too far off,” she elaborated. 

“Not far off?” Iris squeaked, seeming genuinely distraught. She set herself down beside him on the mattress, as close as she dared to get. “W-what does that even mean? And... and what are we supposed to do?” Peter was no mind reader, but he was sure that Iris was finally realizing exactly how difficult this endeavor would be. Natural births were a challenge enough. With him, there would be no telling what could happen... or what could go wrong.

Johona mulled over the question for slightly too long. Her hands were twisting absently around one another, and Peter could practically see confusion and worry coming off of her in waves. “Well... I can’t rightly say what the next step is. This isn’t exactly a common case for a medical professional of any sort to have dealt with. It seems all that there is left to do now is wait.”

“Wait?” Peter snapped. That had to be the least satisfying answer she could have possibly given him. “What the hell are we supposed to be waiting for? You can’t expect me to just... to just...”

“No, it’s common procedure to expect you to  _ just _ ,” Johona retorted. “At the first sign of labor, the only thing to do is to let everything run its course. It isn’t until later that anything can physically be done to speed things along.” 

There was that word again.  _ Labor _ . Just the sound of it made Peter shudder. 

“And how long will that be?” Iris asked.

Jo sighed, pursing her lips into a thin, concerned line. “That can vary like you wouldn’t believe. Sometimes it lasts hours, sometimes days.”

That was all the incentive that Peter’s imagination needed to start running absolutely wild. He had spent countless days trying to avoid thinking about this subject, but now here it was, staring him directly in the face. It was all happening too fast. He didn’t know how to wrap his head around it. He wanted to tell Johona that this couldn’t be right; he wasn’t ready for this; he was still confused and afraid and he had never stopped feeling that way, not really; he still hadn’t managed to figure out how it would happen... Or maybe he had. His nightmare replayed in his head, seared into his memory with burning clarity. It made the ache in his core sharper, almost urging his nausea back into existence. 

He wanted to tell her, but his throat felt dry, and his tongue stuck in his mouth. All he could manage to get out was a weary, pitiful “Days?”

Johona never gave him a concrete response. She only looked earnestly at him, sighed and approached him to feel his forehead. He knew before she even opened her mouth that his unexplained fever had returned, and when she flattened her palms against his belly to feel for any change, he predicted that there would be nothing but the consistent heat to report, though she did note that its temperature seemed to have elevated somewhat. There was that, and the fact that the twins hadn’t been still for even a moment. The light inside him wasn’t pulsing, but that seemed to be the only missing piece that set this apart from the last episode he’d had. 

Finally, she drew back and stood up again. “For now, you should rest as much as possible,” she said. “If moving aggravates your condition, do everything you can to avoid it. Try to eat if you can, but if the nausea persists, you don’t have to force it. And above all, if it gets any worse,  _ let me know _ .”

Her advice didn’t quell Peter’s unease at all, but he nodded along anyway. “Are you still leaving for the hospital today?”

“I’m afraid I have to,” Johona replied, a dismally worried look on her face. “I’m already on thin ice for the smuggled supplies, and I can’t take off without any explanation. Sickness and injuries don’t take a vacation during the holidays.”

Her response drove his unease over the edge, if it had ever been on the edge at all. “And what if the time comes while you’re gone?”

“Judging by the fact that you’ve only been experiencing the pains for a few hours, I wouldn’t assume that would happen. Cases where women deliver immediately after the first signs of labor are relatively rare. Just do as I asked. Rest, don’t strain yourself in any way, and try to deal with the pain as best you can.”

Peter felt Iris’s fingers tighten around his a split second before she spoke up. “But he’s going to need you when the time actually does come.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to talk with my employer today to see what he can do. If I explain to him that your condition has taken a turn for the worse, maybe he’ll sympathize.”

The reassurance was small, but it was something. At the very least, it was enough for Iris. “Okay,” she said, sounding almost breathless.

“But, Iris... if anything does happen...”

The maid tensed up, and Peter became aware that her hand hadn’t let go of his for so much as a second. She was still clinging to him for dear life.

“I’m going to need to talk to you about this.” The grim tone of Johona’s voice sent a chill down Peter’s spine. “Personally.”

Iris hesitated, then let go of Peter and rose up from her place on the bed. “Of course,” she acquiesced, and with unsteady steps, she made her way to the doorway. Johona turned to follow her.

“Hey, Jo?” Peter called after her before she disappeared.

His friend paused in the doorway, looking back at him. “What is it?”

Shakily, he continued, “You remember my theory I told you about?”

Johona’s face hardened, and her eyes went dark. “I do,” she said, and for a short while, he was almost sure he wouldn’t have to tell her the rest of what he intended. But he had learned that it was always better to be safe with such things, so he settled for a compromise.

“There’s something I feel you should know about it,” he stated. “But I’ll let you speak to Iris first.”

His friend nodded, the grave expression never leaving her face. She then closed the door, leaving Peter alone at last.

* * *

 

Over the course of her life, people had more often than not placed little faith in Iris. It had been that way since she could first remember, and maybe in all that time, it had bled into her own image of herself.

It was hardly her fault that she felt so lost when Johona made the snap decision to leave a huge responsibility up to her and her alone.

“I... I don’t know if I can do this,” were the first words out of her mouth when Jo had finished making her request.

“You don’t have to be sure,” her friend reassured her. “You only have to carry on to the best of your ability for as long as I’m absent. I’ll leave you with instructions in case something happens. Just remember and follow them as closely as possible.”

Iris’s nerves felt like they were going haywire. “B-but... I’ve never done this before,” she weakly contested. “I’ve never even witnessed something like this. I... I have so little experience,  _ an actual newborn baby _ might know better how to manage the situation than I would.”

“Well, you’re about to have two of those on your hands, so I’m sure they’ll give you plenty of advice.”

The maid sighed and shuddered, a nervous chill sweeping through her bones. “I-I’m sorry for reacting like this. I... You  _ know _ I will gladly do whatever you ask of me. I’m only afraid that...” She trailed off, her throat suddenly feeling tight. “I... I don’t want to fail.”

“And I have faith that you won’t.” Johona took Iris by the shoulders and firmly held her gaze. “Listen. I’ve been studying living things for years, and in all of that time, I’ve come to find that nature often does a surprisingly adequate job of allowing organisms to take care of themselves. Now, the whole nature metaphor doesn’t apply all that well to the situation. I just want you to realize that, as important as you are to this whole process, the greatest part of it is down to the actions of Peter and the twins.” 

Though Iris tried to stay composed, but still, she felt her face crumple a little. Johona sighed and slackened her grip. “Alright, telling you how little control over the situation you really have doesn’t seem to have helped much.”

“I-it isn’t you,” Iris murmured, her lips trembling as she spoke. “I just need to... I need to face this as it is. Once he needs me, I’ll do the best that I can, and that’s really the most that I _ can _ do.”

For a moment, Johona seemed almost surprised before her mouth curved into a small, proud smile. Her hands slid away from Iris’s arms and she quickly pulled her into a tight, genuine embrace. “That’s my girl,” she said, patting the maid on the back.

“I feel like I should be acting more grateful for your believing in me so much.”

“It’s a big responsibility to be leaving on someone’s shoulders. If you aren’t, that’s only as much as I expected.”

“But I  _ am _ grateful. For this, and... for other things.” Iris paused as she let go of Johona and pulled back to look her in the eyes again. “Do you think we should tell Rabbit about all of this?”

“Tell me what?”

The familiar, tinny voice had come from nowhere, hovering somewhere down at the end of the hallway. At that moment, Iris thought they maybe it might have been a better idea for Johona to have made her proposition somewhere a little more private than the open space just outside Peter’s bedroom door. Neither of them had heard Rabbit’s heavy metallic footsteps. As she stood, the clicking of her gears and the hiss of her steam-powered limbs were barely perceptible. It made Iris wonder when she had learned to move that quietly.

“Rabbit, sweetheart, what are you doing here?” Iris bewilderedly asked.

“N-nothing much,” the automaton replied. “I was just wandering-ing-ing around lookin’ for Th-th-th’ Jon, because we were p-p-playin’ hide and seek an’ I still ha-haven't found him. Th-then I heard voices, an’ I started wo-won-wonderin’ why I hadn’t seen anybody downstairs, ‘c-cause around now, m-mo-mo-most of the time, one of you’s c-c-c-c-come down by now.”

“Well, we’re sorry for worrying you,” Johona chimed in. “it’s only that something’s come up that’s caught our attention.”

Rabbit came closer and lowered her voice. “W-w-what is it?”

Iris bit her lip, sighed and looked towards Johona, who glanced briefly at Rabbit, then nodded. “It’s about Peter,” the maid explained. “He’s not really feeling at his best right now. And we think the reason why is because... well... we think that it means that the twins will be coming soon.”

Rabbit’s face crumpled with concern at first, but gradually transformed into an elated grin as Iris spoke. “R-really?” she squealed a bit too loud, then cut herself short and lowered her voice again. “How s-s-soon is soon?”

“None of us are sure,” Johona said. “Could be within the next few days, could be within the next few hours. These experiences are different for everyone who goes through them.”

“So w-w-what’s goin’ on with him?”

“Physiologically, I can’t really say, but the side effects are rather unpleasant. His fever’s come back, he’s in a lot of pain right now, and it’s making him feel sick.”

At that, the automaton’s face fell. “I-is-is.... Is there anything I c-can do to help?”

Iris looked at Johona, sure that the nurse would meet Rabbit’s question with a firm  _ no _ , but to her surprise, she paused and tapped her fingertip pensively on her chin.  “Actually,” she mused, “since it won’t be possible for me to stay here at all times, it’s probably best if we have as many hands as possible. Even more important, we’ll need someone to keep your brothers busy.”

“Oh!” Rabbit brightened up. “I c-c-can do that r-r-re-real easy! I mean... I already got em’ hiding somewhere Peter probably can’t ever find ‘em. D-do I just get ‘em to keep hiding?”

“You could, but you should probably go find them sooner rather than later. Before they get bored and wander off.”

“O-okay.” Rabbit’s gears hummed, and she seemed ready to turn around and run off, but for some reason, she didn’t. Instead, she looked at Iris, her eyes soft. “A-actually... b-be-be-before I do that... is it ok-k-kay if I go an’ see him?”

Iris began worrying at her lip again, unsure of what to say. She turned to Johona again, only to find her in the exact same spot. For a second, their gazes met, and the nurse tilted her head towards the door. “Why not?” she mouthed.

“I-I... I suppose so,” Iris stammered. “If only for a little while. But you have to be gentle with him, as gentle as you can. He hasn’t slept, and he isn’t up for very much right now.”

Rabbit nodded silently, then reached for Iris’s hand to hold. The maid took it, feeling that the automaton was still wearing her soft gloves, as if she’d been expecting a request like the one she was given. Johona took a step back toward her room down the hall. “I’d love to stay around, but I really should get dressed and start breakfast. Can’t afford to disappoint the doctor any more than I already have.”

“We’ll see you in the kitchen, then,” Iris responded. Johona disappeared, and she led Rabbit by the hand into the room.

The room was just as deathly still as it had been when they had left it, and Peter had remained in he same half-seated position as he was in when she had last seen him. He was breathing heavier than he should have been, and his head was leaned back into the pillows, as if he were trying in vain to fall asleep again. He raised it when he heard the sound of people entering into the room and glanced wearily toward the door. Iris could see no change in his expression when she was sure he had seen his invention entering the room. Still, she asked Rabbit to stand at a distance for a moment. Iris calmly approached the bed and settled herself in the space next to her employer.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to bring her in here?” he murmured weakly.

“She wanted to see you,” Iris whispered back. “I’ve warned her that you’re not doing well, so hopefully she’ll understand...”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant. Are you sure it’s alright for her to see me like this?”

Iris sighed and rubbed Peter’s shoulder. There were so few moments that he didn’t seem anxious, and always so self-conscious. “She knows what’s going on, and she’s concerned. Whatever you think it is that she won’t want to see, I don’t think it would matter much to her.”

Briefly, Peter seemed ready to protest, but the tiredness in his easily took over. “If you say so,” he surrendered.

With that, Iris stood up and turned back to Rabbit, beckoning her to come closer. Slowly, she did. Iris could see the shakiness in her movements. She tentatively sat down in the space where Iris had been. “H-hi, Peter,” she stuttered.

In spite of his pain, Peter managed a faint but warm smile. “Hello, Rabbit,” he responded.

“I, uh... I-I was told you weren’t d-d-doin’ so good. Um... H-how... h-h-how’re you f-feeling?”

“Definitely not good, that’s for sure.”

“Oh. I... I thought so.” The automaton paused, as if unsure what to say next, maybe unsure why she wanted to come in so badly in the first place. “H-how bad is it?”

“Well, it kept me awake most of the night, if that tells you anything.” One of his hands trailed across his huge, aching belly. “And the two of them haven’t stopped wiggling around for even a second,” he added, letting slip a tired laugh. “I was thinking maybe you could set them straight.”

Rabbit giggled and leaned down to bring her face level with Peter’s stomach. “Hey,” she scolded. “I thought I t-t-told you to st-stop hurtin’ our father. He’s trying to h-help you. Be nice!” She poked at him for emphasis, and Iris saw a flutter of movement bulge out in retaliation, making Peter wince.

“I-I think that just made them angry,” he wheezed, still trying to laugh it off.

“Oh no!” Rabbit squeaked before leaning down again. “I... I d-d-didn’t mean to yell at you like that, I-I just d-do-don’t want Peter to keep on hurting. S-so try to be a l-li-li-little easier on him, okay?”

Peter laughed again. “I think it worked that time.”

“G-g-good,” his creation said, a smile coming to life on her face. “Th-they should be nicer because of w-w-what you’re doing for them. Y-you’re tryin’ to bring them out into the world, so they can be with the r-r-rest of us, right?”

“You’re close, but that isn’t exactly how it works, Rabbit,” Peter explained. “Even if the twins aren’t doing anything to hurt me, it won’t change very much. You see, the way it works is... how can I put this... whenever someone brings another life into the world, there is always pain involved. It doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is wrong. In fact, it has to be there in order for people to know that anything is happening at all.”

Rabbit’s face crumpled. “S-so... y-y-you’re gonna  _ have _ to get hurt?”

“Only for a while. Only for as long as it takes for your brothers to arrive.”

_ Brothers _ . That was how Rabbit saw them, Iris remembered, though she couldn’t be sure at all what it meant for any of them anymore.

She watched the automaton take her creator’s hand and squeeze it between her own. “R-right,” she unsteadily said. “P-Peter... I just wanna know... are you g-gonna be okay? I r-r-remember you said that the twins w-were takin’ your energy and stuff before, and it was m-ma-makin’ you sleepy. What’re they gonna do to you w-when...” She trailed off, looking frightened.

“I don’t think that’s something I can definitively tell you,” he admitted. “But I’m going to try my best to stay in one piece. That, at the very least, I can promise you.”

Rabbit seemed wary, but she smiled anyway. “O-k-k-kay, Peter.”

With that, there was little more to be said. Rabbit gave her creator’s belly one last gentle stroke before backing away from the bed and turning toward the door. “I th-think I should get to findin’ my other brothers,” she said. And just like that, she was gone.

* * *

 

The day seemed to drag as it went on. That was what Johona gathered from the report that Iris gave her when she returned in the evening. According to her, little had happened in regard to Peter. The pain had persisted, and it had kept him almost immobile, only allowing him to fight past it and move when absolutely necessary. Iris had cooked a bit and tried to get him to eat, but his appetite seemed to have disappeared. She had hardly seen him leave his room at all, she said; he must have tried to sleep, but there was no way he could have actually managed it.

Even in the face of all her previous transgressions, the doctor had been merciful when she told him of her situation; that was to say, when she told him that her friend’s illness had taken a fast and sudden turn and she was afraid his time may be running short. She tried to circle around her real requests by asking for advice on how to make his life more comfortable until he finally met his end. To her surprise, he offered her far more than she could ever have asked of him.

After their conversation, Iris returned to keeping after the automatons while finishing her day’s worth of chores. She was taking longer than usual, with the day she’d had. Johona didn’t blame her; besides, it gave her a chance to speak to her friend without any prying eyes.

Her medical bag felt heavy as she climbed the stairs and approached Peter’s room. She could hear the soft  _ clink _ of glass against glass, and she certainly hoped that what she’d been given could last as long as it would be needed.

Peter was lying on his bed when she entered, hardly having changed at all from how she had left him that morning. At the sound of someone entering, he rolled over and struggled to sit up, his haggard breaths giving way to a subdued whine as he forced his body upright. “Thank christ,” he said. “You’ve come back.”

“Well, I was planning on departing for Willcox tonight and letting you figure it out on your own, but I figured I would return anyway, just for you,” she quipped in reply.

“Please don’t joke about that,” her friend groaned. “It’s hardly a fitting time.”

“It’s never a fitting time with you, is it?”

Peter huffed and rolled his eyes. “What did you tell your employer?”

“The same thing that you told Kahn to get him off of our backs.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well, apparently he finds me to be a valuable set of hands to have in the staff, so I’m not allowed to take complete leave.” Her friend seemed about to complain, but she quickly added, “ _ But _ he is allowing me to cut my hours. I won’t be receiving payment for any hours that I’m not present, of course, but that’s the price for being let off four hours earlier than I should be. In addition to that, I have even better news.”

That seemed to catch Peter’s attention more effectively than anything else she said. He leaned towards her, his eyes focused intently on her medical bag when she sat on the edge of his bed and set it down between them. She reached into it and pulled out first a leather tourniquet, then an empty syringe, then a small case filled with replacement needles and several small vials containing a clear fluid.

“What is that?” he asked.

“This is morphine” she explained as she assembled the syringe and started placing the tourniquet around her friend’s arm. “My employer was kind enough to give me a small stock of it, since I told him that I was afraid you were close to kicking the bucket and I wanted to keep you as comfortable as I could. Hopefully this will take the edge off of your symptoms until you deliver.”

Peter said nothing, only sighed and nodded, which Johona took to be a confirmation that he understood. He remained still while she filled the syringe, tightened the tourniquet around his upper arm and poked at his veins. He squealed a bit when she sank the needle into his skin, but it quickly disappeared as the painkiller drained into his bloodstream.

“That should hold you down for a few hours,” she said affirmatively while she bandaged his arm. “We need to be careful with how we use this, though. I doubt that the doctor will allow me to take much more than he’s already given me.”

“Alright. I’ll try to manage on my own as much as I can,” Peter responded. “I managed to make it through today. But there is one thing that’s been bothering me.” He paused for a moment, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, before he finally said, “What are we going to tell Iris?”

For once, Johona felt at a loss for words. For once, both she and her friend had dealt with a problem in the same way; they had skirted around it, failed to mention it, let it perpetuate until they had no alternatives left. “You know... that conclusion we came to, even if it was both of us at once... i-it’s only a theory.”

“But we have nothing else. Last night, I had a terrible dream. I think it was another vision. I was alone, and it was cold, and I felt like I did during the last episode you saw. Exactly the same. And then... th-then, only a second before I woke up, my skin broke open.”

Johona was not at all a squeamish person, but in that moment, she felt sick. “I should have thought so,” she stammered. “It would only make sense. But what do you expect me to do?”

“That isn’t what I was asking. I’m not sure whether or not this is something that we should tell Iris about, and I needed your input.”

“She’s the one who’s close to you most of the time. It’s best if she knows as much as she can.”

“But you  _ know _ how she thinks of me. How do you expect she’ll react when we tell her that giving birth to our twins is  _ literally _ going to tear me apart?”

As if by magic, Peter’s words completely derailed Johona’s mind from the matter at hand. “I’m sorry, did you just say  _ our _ twins?”

“Jo, that isn’t what this is about.”

“I know it isn’t, but you aren’t going to circle around this, too.”

“Then tell me what to say to Iris.”

“I already gave you my input, and you didn’t seem too fond of it.”

“Fine. Then maybe I should leave the explanations up to you.”

“And raising the twins afterward will be up to you and Iris. Sounds like a fair trade.”

“Johona!”

She couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s agitation. “You were thinking it already,” she jested. “I only said it out loud.”

“And what if I was?” Peter tossed back, seeming to wilt as he spoke. “That won’t change how dangerous the ordeal is going to be, or determine whether or not Iris will be able to cope with it.”

“I’m a bit surprised that Iris is the one you’re most worried about in this situation.”

He sighed and turned his gaze away, resorting instead to staring at the wall. “Whatever happens to me, the twins will likely be fine.”

“Not if you try to deliver them alone.” 

A second passed in silence. Peter didn’t react as she had hoped he would.

“Peter, listen to me. If you start peeling apart and I’m not here to facilitate, someone is going to have to.”

“I’m aware of that!” the engineer suddenly cried out, still refusing to look at her. His voice quavered, and he dug his fingers into the bedspread. “I... Fine, I surrender. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That’s only natural,” Johona said softly. “No one ever does the first time.”

Finally, her friend met her eyes again. She reached towards him and pulled him close to her, taking care to avoid crushing his body in her embrace like she was once so fond of doing. His head lolled onto her shoulder, and he exhaled slowly, like something deflating in her arms. He was exhausted; she could feel it, and she was sure that he would gladly sleep at the first opportunity. Out of habit, she started building a schedule for the rest of the evening: she and Iris would make dinner, they would get him to eat a bit while his pain wasn’t turning his stomach, then he could turn in if he wished. 

Then, all of a sudden, she heard Peter murmur something into her hair. Carefully, she pushed him back, holding him at a small distance with her hands on his shoulders. “What did you say?”

“I’m in love with her.”

“Iris?” It hardly needed saying. He knew she had figured it out long before he did himself, but that was simply the way Peter was. 

“There’s no one else it could be,” he breathlessly replied. “She’s been here so long, and now I can’t imagine my life without her. I can’t work in the lab without her talking to me. I can’t sleep alone anymore. I never knew I could need someone this much, never in such a visceral way. I don’t just want to give the twins up to her, I want her to  _ raise them with me _ . I’m envisioning all sorts of things, and I don’t know if it’s the blue matter or just me being sentimental, but she kissed me once and-”

“Wait,” Johona demanded. “Iris kissed you?”

“I... I don’t really know. I can barely remember. It was after I had that nightmare, and I’d woken up next to her. She must have been trying to comfort me. I was already slipping back under, but I just remember her, her face being close to me, and I thought I felt... I might have dreamed it.”

Briefly, Johona was quiet, drumming her fingers on the mattress while she thought. “Well. This certainly, uh... changes things.”

“It does,” Peter listlessly replied.

“You should tell her.”

“About what?” Peter asked. “We’ve gone in so many directions.”

“Any of them,” the nurse flippantly answered. She stood up and gathered her supplies back into her bag. “I think it’s best if I leave explanations up to you from now on.”

“But I thought you said-”

“Up to you, Walter,” she interjected, promptly cutting him short. “For now, though, you might want to go downstairs. Dinner won’t be long, and according to Iris, your day hasn’t involved much food at all.”

Peter narrowed his eyes at her and grumbled something under his breath before scooting to the edge of the bed and struggling to stand up. Johona had to assist him. She acted as his crutch on the stairs as well, at least until Rabbit spied them from the base of the stairs and eagerly took her place and led her inventor toward the parlor. 

The Jon followed Johona to the kitchen, babbling questions about what they would be making that evening. She did her best to answer while her mind was elsewhere. While she and her new assistant went about the steps of putting dinner together, she found herself thinking back to Rabbit. She was glad that they had decided to tell the first automaton the truth about her creator’s situation. She was behaving herself astonishingly well. It probably didn’t hurt that she had no reservations about sharing her excitement. Surely that would bolster Peter’s spirits in the face of something as ominous as... 

As ominous as...

In spite of her constitution, Johona didn’t want to think about it.

* * *

 

From New Year’s Day onward, the day’s schedule was drastically changed, primarily for Peter and Iris. Johona was running somewhat differently as well, of course, but returning home at two in the afternoon instead of six in the evening is hardly worth mentioning when compared to turning one’s sleep schedule completely on its head.

The practice was taken up at Johona’s request. They discussed it the first evening, while the morphine in Peter’s bloodstream was still in its full effect. They needed to conserve it, she explained, as well as it being necessary that her friend be able to feel what was going on with his body at least part of the time. That evening, Peter and Iris were to stay up as late as they could to shift themselves into a new circadian cycle. From then on, they would sleep during daylight hours. Johona would awaken before sunrise, give Peter a dose of morphine and let him sleep for the hours that she was unavailable to him. Since Iris basically slept in the same room as him, she could keep watch of him in case anything went haywire. And so far, nothing had.

Peter had adapted rather easily to the new schedule. It was difficult in the first few days, as his capricious symptoms of fatigue never wavered, but he adjusted eventually and complied with his friend’s orders without complaint, since in his condition, he couldn’t do very much in the way of protesting. In truth, he couldn’t do very much at all, a fact of which his current life never failed to remind him.

In the hours that he was awake, there was hardly a moment he had to himself. Iris stayed near whenever possible, shadowing him even more closely than she had when she had thought he was dying. And when Iris had to leave his presence, Rabbit took her place. She behaved herself surprisingly well while she was with him; she managed to remain still and not break anything in his presence, though she did love to talk. There was no end to the questions she asked, and at times Peter didn’t have enough answers for her. Occasionally she would ask to talk to the twins, and he would let her, in spite of how much they kicked and shifted in response to her voice. Even though their every movement caused a dull, searing pain to radiate through his distorted body, he knew she meant well by everything she did.

And that was the way that time passed for an entire week.

It didn’t seem normal to Peter. He asked Johona exactly how long labor was supposed to last. She told him the same thing she had the first time he had asked: that there was a spectrum, the experience was different for everyone who went through it, and everything else he’d heard before and didn’t care about. However, her resolve broke not a second after she had finished her usual explanation.

“I’ve never seen this part of the process last this long before,” she confessed, sounding despondent. 

“I knew it,” was his weary reply.

“You know that I’m doing everything that I can,” Johona went on, “but I’m just not sure what the next step is. I’ve never dealt with  _ this _ kind of a birth before, and it’s throwing me off so much that I can barely think.”

“But I’ve already seen what happens next,” Peter contested. “If they’re going to break through my skin, then they’ll either need to tear through it themselves or get some assistance. Come on, Jo. There has to be something you can do to... you know, help them along.”

“We’ve been over this, Peter. I am not going to cut you open!”

“Please, Johona! You’ve performed vivisections before. This can’t be that much different.”

“In a vivisection, it isn’t imperative that the subject survives. You might think it’s the same thing, but it isn’t the same at all. I’m not a surgeon, and we don’t have the right tools.”

“Then take them from the hospital.”

“I can’t! I’m already on thin ice with the rest of the staff, and I won’t risk pushing them any further.”

“Listen to me. Either you put me under the knife and finish it, quick and clean, or the twins have to dig their way out, and frankly, that isn’t something I want to look forward to.”

“I’m sorry!” Johona cried out finally, abruptly startling her friend into silence. She stared at him for a moment, distraught, before she continued, her voice considerably lower. “I... I don’t know if that’s something I can do to you. I need time to think about this.”

“We don’t  _ have _ time anymore, Jo.”

“I know. I-I... Tomorrow. I’ll tell you what I’ve decided.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY.  
> My update schedule is already screwed. As soon as this shitstorm is finished, the whole thing gets posted. All at once. I don't even give a fuck anymore.  
> See you next chapter.


	26. Revelations, More Or Less Disconcerting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a short time, I'm back to returning here for updates once a week. Isn't this the schedule I started with and intended to keep, then didn't? It probably won't be like this for long. Less than a chapter left to be written. And by the time that's done, it'll probably be one final blast that no one will have been waiting for, because let's face it, in all of nearly a year, nobody has given a fuck about this absolute shitwreck of a story. Not really, anyway.  
> I'm sorry I keep saying this, Devin. I just have a really shit self-esteem.  
> Thanks to Devin for my self-esteem boosts, anyway. She doesn't have an AO3 but she's been keeping up with my story because, somehow, I managed to find someone who has the same weird long-standing kinks as me. Same deal with cicada_s, wherever the fuck that guy is. I appreciate his attention, despite the fact that he isn't part of this fandom. Sadly the interest in specific genres of weird shit is not a trait I share with volatileSoloiste, but she was still willing to put up with beta-reading this trash for the ages and ages that I've been asking her to. Thanks, guys.  
> Nobody is going to post about this shit, but I'll still occasionally look under the tags "fic: artificial life" and "fic: alaout" on Tumblr, because I'm a dirty wishful thinker like that. If anything, I'll occasionally check in to the "sexpg" tag to see what the dark side of the fandom is up to.  
> Because I'm a part of it now. I guess I was always destined to be.  
> I just recalled I haven't been posting warnings on these like I probably should have been. I'll go back and fix that on other chapters eventually. But for now, CONTENT WARNING: teacup throwing, repressed memories, shame, self-directed homophobia, yelling at mechanical children, robot guilt, covert scheming, mention of impending gore, and as always, mountains and mountains of weird shit.  
> Now, let's begin.

 

January eighth arrived, then it slowly faded as the hours passed, and Peter never received his answer. He had nearly forgotten that he was waiting for one, and perhaps that fact was one that Johona was relying on. He didn’t bother going after her for it. After the way he’d lost his composure with her, she wouldn’t be in any mood to give him any kind of conclusive statement.

Late in the evening, Johona disappeared to her room, likely not to return until the following morning to administer the next dose of morphine. He didn’t blame her. The things he’d said had probably scared her half to death and added even more to the inordinate amount of pressure that she was already under. Besides that, she had been getting up, in his opinion, far earlier than any human should have to in the middle of winter. If she wanted to sleep early and dodge another dangerous request, that was not a problem.

His most recent dose of morphine had worn off as soon as he had woken up, so for the moment, he was confined to the library. Rabbit had seen to it that The Spine and The Jon were elsewhere and entertained, and Iris was busy with arranging items on shelves and clearing dust and cobwebs from the room, since it seemed that the spiders on the bookshelf by the window had decided to make that corner their permanent home. A copy of  _ Jane Eyre _ was perched in his hands, but he was finding it hard to focus with the feeling of molten steel gradually smoldering inside of him.

“Iris, do you ever think about what the twins are going to look like?” he said, if only to fill the silence that surrounded them.

The maid paused, signified by a brief stop in the ruffling of her feather duster. “Sometimes,” she replied. ‘They’ll be like you, most predictably. Though I can imagine they’ll look something like that man you were with all those nights ago as well.”

“Oh.” Peter felt his heart stutter. His throat burned with shame. He waited for her to say more, and for some time, she didn’t. And strangely enough, when she did, there was no hint of resentment in her voice.

“I’ve been wondering something,” she finally said, maybe just to fill the silence again. “How long did you spend living like that?”

“Like what? Dangerously? Alone? Seeking shallow comforts and cutting people off instead of facing my grief like a human being?” He’d told her about it before. 

“I meant to ask how long you were drinking, but if that’s the way you want to put it.”

Iris’s solemn tone made him turn around and face her. She had come down from the rolling ladder, her duster tucked into the pocket of her apron, and she was gazing at him, a soft, sympathetic look in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to phrase it that way,” he said. “You know I hate that part of myself.”

With quiet steps, she moved towards the fainting couch. “What part of yourself?”

“The part that runs away from things and retreats without any real reason. It thinks that physical things can make up for emotional losses... you know, things that can’t be touched but that we feel anyway. And it made me...” He sighed, pressing his palm into his forehead. “It made me do so many awful things.”

“It didn’t matter, you know,” Iris timidly remarked as she settled down next to him. “When you told me about everything you did, it didn’t change the way I felt about you. Well, maybe it did, in some ways, but I still...” She stopped suddenly, casting her eyes downward. “I’ve always been very fond of you, Peter.”

Even with the pain he was in, he managed a weak smile. “That’s always reassuring to hear.”

“After you told me about the way things were, I never looked down on you for it. I only... I felt terrible that I had been working for you all this time and never noticed... I never realized that there was so much wrong, and I wish that I could have done more than I did.”

“I don’t know how I would have thanked you if you had.”

“Is it true that you hate everything you did back then?”

“Of course it is,” Peter bitterly answered, but he paused for a second, thinking at first, then remembering. “It should be.”

“It wasn’t _ all _ bad, was it?”

“Not entirely. If I hadn’t spent all that time working on Rabbit, I might not have finished her by now. And if I hadn’t...” Even after all this time, it was still hard to say out loud. He still couldn’t stand to admit what he had done. It was impossible to run from the truth anymore, though, and it had been for a while, so he simply let out a weary laugh and gestured at his massive belly. “Well, look at where it’s gotten us.”

Iris giggled, her face glowing with joy. Perhaps out of habit, she leaned a little closer and brought one of her hands close to Peter’s stomach, but she stopped, her hands hovering just short of contact. “I-Is this a bad time? I mean, would you mind if I...”

“Go on,” he acquiesced.

With a soft exhale, Iris let her hand come to rest on his abdomen. In spite of the constant pain, her touch always seemed to put him at ease. The effect of her gently running her hands over his bloated midsection was almost as powerful as Johona’s morphine. Though he’d told her before, she still didn’t seem to believe herself capable of such a thing. That might have been true, Peter admitted to himself. Maybe it was only because she took his mind off of everything else. Placebo effect or not, Iris’s presence was powerful to him.

The moments passed calm and quiet as Iris gently petted his stomach. She leaned in and kissed it twice, once on the left side and once on the right. Peter felt the twins stirring a little, but somehow managed to block out the pain. Iris laid her ear against his belly as she had done many times before, and he wondered what kinds of things she was hearing from inside him now.

“You want to know something?” she murmured. “Even if they look nothing like either one of us, I will still love them.”

“Won’t it be a little strange, though?” he asked. “I mean... I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but if people realize that you’re raising two sons that aren’t, well... physically similar to you...”

“I’m already a person of little renown,” she said. “Outside of this manor, I’m barely worth mentioning. With the kind of life that I live, people probably won’t care unless I purposely make a spectacle of myself.”

“I’m just worried about you, Iris.” In that moment, he realized that Iris had just interrupted him for what might have been the first time in all her three, now nearly four, years of knowing him.

“You don’t have to be. Even if both of them are spitting images of some strange man that I’ve never met, it won’t matter.”

Peter wanted to laugh, but couldn’t find the strength. “Then it’s a good thing that he was handsome.”

In a second, Iris’s touch had disappeared from his skin. Suddenly she was sitting up and looking him in the face. “Was he?”

_ Wait... did I just say that? _

Reality took a moment to register, and as soon as it did, Peter wanted to scream. Why did he say that? Where had it come from? The last thing Iris would want to hear about would be all of the sexual escapades he’d been on before her.  _ No one _ was interested in that.  _ Especially _ when said escapades were as drunk, confused and embarrassing as every last one of his had been.

But Iris’s stare didn’t waver. Her eyes were bright with curiosity. He found his tongue crafting the sort of answer that she might give.

“Well, he must have been. I can’t imagine any other reason I would have fallen in with him.”

Strangely enough, Iris giggled. “What else do you remember about him?”

She wasn’t disgusted. She wasn’t horrified. She was laughing, like this was some kind of funny anecdote to her. And she wanted to know more.

“I...” he choked.

He couldn’t tell her. She didn’t want to know about Ernest.

“Iris, I... there’s something I should tell you.”

“What is it?” she asked, her face crumpling with concern. Worry. Finally, a reaction from her that made some sense.

“I’ve already said at least a thousand times that I don’t remember anything about that night,” he unsteadily began. “But... I don’t know if I was blocking it out on purpose, or if I really  _ was _ that drunk and the blue matter has done something to my memory... Damn it, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, only... I remember him.” The words fell dead and lifeless out of his mouth, leaving a bittersweet taste. “I haven’t really forgotten anything.”

For what felt like an eternity, Iris had no response. She gazed at him, eyes searching, while she leaned her elbow against the backrest of the couch and balanced her head in her hand. “Tell me,” she finally said.

Peter didn’t want to. He wished he had never spoken of the past at all. The past was supposed to be just that, and the only thing he would ever want to tie Iris up in would be his future, the present, anything but the regrettable life he had lived before she had stepped in and rescued him.

“His name was Ernest,” he unsteadily began. “He was a navy sailor, and his name was Ernest Rantanen. He found me because he recognized my situation. I suppose his intention was to defuse it, but... well, you can see that he only served to make everything a little bit worse.”

Iris grinned and finally returned to resting her hand on his belly. “Did you know anything else about him?”

“Well, before anything else happened, we were just talking,” Peter responded, almost breathless. “We spent hours talking, drinking, and talking more. He’d had his heart broken, just like I had. And everything after that sort of fell into place. I wish I could wholeheartedly believe that it was because I was too drunk to make judgements of any kind, but underneath all of that, there must have been something else.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was?”

“No. I’ve tried as much as I could not to think about it, not to recall the details or dig any deeper, but... I couldn’t begin to tell you. It was something deep and impulsive that I can’t describe.”

“Were you in love with him?” Iris asked almost wistfully.

Peter sighed, feeling shame burning in his throat. “I couldn’t have been. Life doesn’t work that way. Nothing happens that quickly. It was something else... some sort of a desire... no, that’s not right, either. I didn’t love him, but... I needed him. I think I just needed someone.”

Iris’s hand slid up to his chest and smoothed out his shirt under her palm. “At times you do,” she said softly.

“I’m not afraid anymore to say that I had a terrible addiction.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

For a moment, Peter stared at her, dumbfounded. “Then what were you trying to say?”

She didn’t speak at first, only worried her lip between her teeth and played with the collar of his shirt between her fingers. “You should know that I’m not any better than you are,” she finally said after the longest silence in the world. “I’ve done the exact same thing. I couldn’t get into the details of each and every encounter if I tried, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear, but I just want you to understand. People do a lot of regrettable things when they’re lonely.”

“I still think of him sometimes, you know,” he murmured after a tense, silent moment. “I remember what I did to him, and I think... Well, I’m not really sure if he remembers me or not. But leaving him there, after everything that happened... I can’t imagine how it made him feel, to be abandoned again.” He took a breath, and his face twitched into a sad smile. “Whatever you did, I don’t blame you for any of it. I suppose we really aren’t so different.”

“Aren’t we?”

Peter felt ready to laugh, but he paused when he saw Iris’s face. She was gazing at him, looking genuinely bewildered. “Why should we be?” he asked.

For a second, Iris looked as though her world had ceased to orbit. Her eyes her wide and glassy, more shocked than he had ever seen them. “I-I... I thought...” she stuttered. Her lips quivered as she struggled to form coherent words. “Th-that was why... I didn’t think you... that was why I never told you...”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“I...” Iris choked out, but then she stopped and turned her eyes away from him to glance at the clock. “Is that what time it is?”

Peter was ready to protest, insist that she go back to what she had been talking about before and explain what the hell she meant when she had said they were supposed to be more different and everything that had come after, but he knew better than to force Iris to talk. He had no energy for fighting as it was. He drowsily followed her gaze to the clock and found that it was just short of 4 AM. 

“Johona is going to be awake in a little while,” Iris went on. “I should probably be getting you back upstairs.”

The engineer sighed in disappointment. “Do we have to go so soon?” 

“You know that she’ll be irritated if we aren’t following her directions to the letter.”

Peter felt ridiculous, like a petulant child refusing to go to bed, but the way he must have sounded wasn’t that far from how he felt. Aside from the constant cramps in his stomach that would definitely keep him awake until the next dose of morphine, he didn’t think he would ever be able to fall asleep now that Iris had left him with another cliffhanger of a conversation. Maybe if he stayed awake, just a bit longer, she would tell him. She wouldn’t tell him outright, she never did, but if he eased her into the subject, then maybe... 

“Do you think we still have time for some tea?”

Iris drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the couch and shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” she said. She mechanically stood up from the couch and turned toward the door. “I’ll put the kettle on. Would you be in the mood for chamomile?”

“A fine idea. Make one for yourself, too, if you want one.”

The maid smiled at him before she disappeared from the room. As soon as she was gone, Peter sank back against the couch, feeling defeated. The twins stirred inside of him, making his whole body ache, but even that pain couldn’t distract him from the searingly fresh memory of what Iris had very nearly told him. He stared hopelessly up at the ceiling, one question screaming over all the other rambling thoughts in his head. 

_ Was she going to say she loves me? _

He knew she did. Johona had figured it out long before he had. He’d reciprocated, and though neither of them had said a single word to each other on the subject, they’d shown it well enough to one another in their actions. At times, they’d even insinuated things about their future; more than once he’d joked with Iris about her living at the manor as a permanent resident instead of just a hired servant. 

And Iris had kissed him once. That detail he could never afford to forget.

The longer he mulled over it, the more Peter began to doubt that anything more would come of trying to pull the truth out of Iris. No matter how much she had changed, he couldn’t forget the small, shy, stuttering maid she had once been. He and Johona and brought her out of her shell, for sure, but maybe some part of her trepidation existed as something other than lessons she was taught to adhere to for appearances’ sake. Maybe that really was her. And maybe he shouldn’t be expecting so much courage of her.

Falling for someone like him at all was brave enough. He couldn’t expect Iris to push herself any farther. After all she had done, he had to meet her halfway somehow.

And what better way than putting into words what they both already knew to be true?

It was almost impossible for Peter to stand on his own. He clawed at the arm of the fainting couch, trying to pull himself to his feet, but his legs screamed in protest and his feet stung, having miraculously swelled after a few short minutes in contact with the ground. But he refused to be defeated. Fighting every impulse to let his heavy, disproportionate body sink back onto the couch, he took a step forward.

The pain was blinding, emerging from nowhere and exploding in the back of Peter’s head like a blow to the skull. His legs kept moving of their own accord, but he couldn’t feel them. They were numb, just like the rest of him, so much of him having ceased to exist that he couldn’t have made it more than halfway to the doorway before he swayed, lost his vision for a split second, and collapsed like a house of cards.

His hip slammed into the floor with a dull  _ thud _ , followed promptly by his head. 

Everything around him was blurry and grey. He thought he heard Iris shouting.

* * *

The teacups were all on the floor, but they didn’t matter.

Iris didn’t know why he had been walking. In his condition, he shouldn’t have been moving at all. He wasn’t anymore, but not for the right reasons. 

“Peter!” Iris cried out, falling to her knees next to her unconscious employer. His eyes were still halfway open, staring hazily into the middle distance and looking at nothing, and his chest shivered with fast, shallow breath. “Peter, what happened? Say something!”

He wheezed, gasped for air and finally mumbled, “Oh, god, that hurt.”

Her employer was still conscious. Iris felt ready to melt with relief. “You fainted again,” she admonished him. “Why were you on your feet? You know you’re in no condition to be moving on your own. Where were you even trying to go?”

“I-I don’t know,” Peter groaned. “It hurts again... I don’t know if... I shouldn’t have tried to...”

“It’s okay,” Iris softly said, combing her fingers through Peter’s hair. His skin felt hot against her palm, like metal left in the sun. “I’ll get help.”

“Don’t get Jo. She’ll be awake soon... she still needs to sleep, just a while longer...”

“I won’t bother Johona,” Iris reassured him, though she wasn’t sure at all that following Peter’s delirious requests were the wisest course of action. “But I don’t think you should be walking. Just stay here.”

“I don’t think I can do much else, Iris.”

_ Always a smart mouth, even half-conscious. _ It took every ounce of self control not to let out a snort of laughter. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said, gently lowering his head to the floor. She stood up, gathered her skirts and rushed out to the hallway, the name of her only enlisted help already waiting on her tongue. “Rabbit!” she called out. “Rabbit, where are you?”

A skeletal copper face peered around the edge of the parlor doorway. “I’m over here!”

“Could you come to the library for a moment?”

Iris must not have been doing as good a job of hiding her distress as she would have liked, because as soon as Rabbit’s gaze met with hers, she saw her facial mechanisms stall and crumple into a frown. Without wasting a second, she dashed towards the doorway. In a lowered voice, she asked, “D-did something b-b-bad happen?”

“I’m afraid Peter’s hurting again,” she hastily said, phrasing it the only way that her employer’s creation would understand. Rabbit gasped, steam hissing from her vents, but Iris didn’t have much time to waste on explanations. “I don’t think he’ll be able to walk. He needs you to carry him upstairs. Do you think you can do that?”

“I-I...I...” Rabbit stuttered. Her voice shivered, and her trepidation was clear on her face. “I-I’ve g-g-got my soft gloves, b-but... th-th-th-that’s not g-gonna be enough to hold him with. H-he an’ my brothers need a lot more soft th-than that. I... I d-d-don’t know if I can be that soft.”

Iris bit her lip, trying to think fast. “Get a blanket from the closet in the hallway upstairs. Then run back here as fast as you can. Understand?”

The automaton nodded wordlessly before scampering off to the staircase.

Once Rabbit left her line of sight, Iris wasted no time in returning to her post beside Peter. His body hadn’t cooled down in the slightest. Unwilling to let him stay sprawled limply on the floor, Iris spread her skirts out on the floor and wrapped her arms around her employer’s chest to pull him close. He was unreasonably heavy, and he groaned as his body dragged across the floor, but he didn’t resist. Iris could only assume that it was because he was in too much pain to move.

It didn’t take long for Rabbit to return. Iris heard her feet clattering against the floor long before she sprinted into the room, a thick wool blanket folded under her arm. She instructed the automaton to unfold the blanket and kneel down across from her, putting Peter’s motionless body between them. Iris carefully wrapped the blanket around him before Rabbit scooped her creator up into her arms, lifting him easily, as if he were nothing more than a rag doll. Iris heard him whimper, and she whispered to him as she pulled the blanket up to cover Rabbit’s exposed shoulders. Peter leaned his head against his invention’s neck and went still.

Iris followed closely behind as they made their way to Peter’s room. Thankfully none of his other creations happened across them before they reached the door. Iris opened it, and Rabbit rushed past her to lay her creator down on his bed. Iris ached as she listened to the soft, subtle whine of every labored breath he took, and her instincts drove her to climb onto the bed next to him. She knew there was nothing she could do to help him, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to be as close as she could.

Meanwhile Rabbit was leaning over him, her hands flattened against his strained, bulging stomach. “Th-they’re moving a lot,” she noted. “Is that w-what’s hurtin’ him so much?”

Iris tried to think of something to say. Rabbit always asked questions like this. Iris had never minded before, but this time, she found herself at a loss. No matter how hard she racked her brain, nothing was coming up. There was no answer.

“I... I don’t know what it is,” she finally stammered. “I don’t know why he’s hurting so much. I don’t know why it’s been like this for more than a week, or what any of us are supposed to do to make it stop.” She tried to stay composed, but her voice was cracking. She could hear it, and she was sure that Rabbit did, too. “J-just... just stop touching him. I don’t know if that’s making it worse, or... or  _ what’s happening to him _ at all.”

The automaton quickly pulled her hands away from her creator and looked at Iris, her eyes wide, stunned, almost afraid. “I-I... I’m s-s-so-sorry, Iris. I j-just... I w-w-was thinkin’... if I t-talked to them, m-m-ma-maybe I could make ‘em stop...”

“I know, Rabbit,” Iris said solemnly, trying to pull herself together again. “I know you want to help, but I don’t know if there’s anything either of us can do. It isn’t your fault that it’s like this.”

Rabbit nodded silently, her gaze downcast. She didn’t speak for a moment, standing like a statue, watching Iris as she desperately tried to comfort Peter. The maid knew that Rabbit had no expectations, that she already knew how helpless they both were in this situation, but it still made her insecure to be watched. 

“H-hey... Iris...” she hesitantly said, her voice soft. “I r-r-remember something that Peter told me once. H-he said that... that w-whenever someone makes l-li-life happen, it always hurts. S-so...so... m-m-maybe this is just what it’s s’posed to be like.”

Once again, a response to Rabbit’s words seemed nonexistent. Iris only stared blankly at Peter’s heaving chest, listening to each gasp that pulled more air into his lungs. “Maybe,” she wearily murmured after a long pause. “Maybe it is.”

“A-are you sure that there’s n-nothing I can do?” Rabbit timidly asked.

“Only wait for Johona to wake up and keep your brothers away from this room,” she replied.

“O-k-kay.” She was trying to be stoic, Iris would tell, but her shivering voice betrayed her.

“Remember, Rabbit, even the smallest things can be a big help to him.”

“Can they?” Finally, a little undertone of hope.

“Of course they can.”

“I-I... I’ll go find Th’ Spine and Jon, then,” she declared. “I’ll keep ‘em as busy as I can.”

“Good.” Iris gave her a halfhearted smile. “I’ll see you again soon.”

Rabbit mirrored her expression and crept towards the doorway. “I hope you both sleep. He’s g-gonna need a lot of energy, and since you’re helpin’ him, s-s-so will you.”

Then she disappeared into the hallway, the latch of the door clicking shut behind her, leaving Iris alone with a now quivering, exhausted Peter lying on his side next to her. His soft, subdued whimpers had stopped, at the very least, but his breath was still heavy. Iris had seen it from him before, the deep, measured lungfuls of air, moving just a little too fast; the kind of rhythm he tried to maintain when he was afraid and trying to pretend he wasn’t. Tentatively, she chanced laying her hand on his shoulder. “Peter?”

“I’m still here,” he replied in a tired, raspy voice that was little more than a whisper.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like death, but somehow I’m still alive.” He winced and clutched at his belly, which visibly morphed under his hands. “And so are they, thankfully.”

Iris sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. “This is getting out of hand,” she said. “You can’t go on suffering like this. We have to do something.”

“I know. I asked Johona, but she...” 

Just like that, he stopped speaking. Iris had noticed the catch in his voice before it had disappeared, and in that moment, she sensed that something wasn’t right. She hesitated briefly before timidly asking, “What did you want Jo to do?”

For what felt like hours, Peter didn’t speak, only stared at the wall, biting his lip and refusing to meet Iris’s gaze. In a low, unsteady voice, he murmured, “We both have a theory. It’s about, well... we’re so close to finding out anyway, you might be able to guess.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how it would happen, too, but I’m not a scientist,” Iris said. “Aside from that, I was too afraid to ask.”

“I can give you the answer,” Peter admitted, “but I fear you aren’t going to like it.” He paused, as if waiting for her to stop him, before taking a break and going on. “The idea came first from our efforts to find the cause of the episodes I was having. There was a correlation with the glow, too. We all saw that it was getting brighter as I, er... progressed. Always after the episodes. I was never sure of it, but all this time, I felt... I’m not sure at all how to put this. It felt as though... as though whatever part of me holds the twins, whatever it is, was moving. At the beginning, it felt as though it were deep inside me, at my very core, and as time went on, I thought I felt it moving outwards, toward my skin... somehow, it was forging a path through me, and now...”

Iris wanted to say something, but words seemed entirely out of her grasp. Her chest tightened. She clutched at the bedspread to stop her hands from trembling.

Her employer didn’t need to turn around and see her face to know how she’d reacted. He must have felt her shivers through the mattress. “I knew you wouldn’t like the answer I had,” he said. “Jo was trying to convince me to tell you, but I wasn’t sure, only because... Iris, I... I know that it isn’t just the twins that you’re fearing for. I know you love me just as much as you do them.”

Suddenly it felt as though the entire world had stopped dead in its tracks.

_ You love me _ .

Iris’s breath caught in her throat, and a pitiful gasp slipped from her mouth. She raised one trembling hand to try and stop it, but it was too late. Nothing she could say would sway him when he already knew the truth. “P-Peter, I...” she stammered, her words quavering just as violently as her fingertips. “I d-didn’t know how to tell you. I might have said something, but... but I couldn’t... y-you must understand, for someone with my background to...”

“It’s okay, Iris.” The soft, reassuring words were incredibly comforting. For a second, it almost felt as if things were as they were always meant to be; for a second, things were normal. That was before Peter spoke again. 

“I love you too.”

He had all but breathed the words, but they rang inside Iris’s head, clearer than the church bells she used to ring. There was no point in containing herself any longer. The maid collapsed onto the mattress, wrapping her arms around Peter’s chest and pressing her face into the nape of his neck. “Please tell me it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining,” she pleaded. “Tell me it won’t hurt you as much as I think it will.”

“I can’t.”

Iris clutched at his shirt, burying her face even further.

“I asked Johona to, well... I asked her to use her skills to make things go a little easier.”

“To cut you open, you mean.”

“If you want to put it bluntly,” he dismally remarked. “She won’t do it though. I trust that it’s within her ability, but apparently she doesn’t.” He paused and sighed. “Maybe it’s only because it’s me and she’s afraid of making a mistake.”

“But if she doesn’t, your pain is only going to continue.”

“Maybe not. Or maybe it will. I’m only afraid that if she waits too long to make up her mind, the twins are going to...” He cut himself short, and Iris could hypothesize why.

“Does she know all of this?”

“I’ve said it to her myself. Even if I hadn’t, she must have known. Just look at me. I feel like I’m being worn so thin that I can barely contain myself.”

“If she won’t do it, then who will?”

At that, Peter shifted, struggling to turn over and face her, prompting Iris to untangle herself and aid him in his efforts. One he had her gaze, his eyes hardened with determination. “There’s something I need to ask of you,” he said.

“W-what is it?”

“These past few days, I’ve been trying to make a plan,” he explained. “I know Jo’s had her work hours cut to try and be on hand for me more often, but she still has to leave for a few hours every day. Now, before she leaves for the hospital, she always administers my next dose of morphine. The effects last for decently long while after. Normally I use that time to sleep, but if we want to carry this out, I’ll need to be awake while the painkiller is still in effect.”

Iris wasn’t sure she liked where this was going, but she nodded along anyway.

“When Johona leaves for the hospital tomorrow, I’m going to shut myself into the lab. One of her reasons was that we didn’t have the right equipment, but I have a number of blades in the lab that are sharper than most, and I know how to sterilize things. Now, while all of this is going on, I’ll need you to stay in the library and make sure that none of the automatons get into the lab. This isn’t something that I think they’ll want to see.”

“P-Peter, you don’t mean...” she stammered. 

“I don’t know what other choice I have.”

“But... are you sure you’ll be able to do this on your own?” Questions and concerns were rampantly spilling into Iris’s head. “Isn’t it going to hurt? What if it’s so painful that you can’t finish going through with it? And it’s going to be a deep incision. What if it bleeds so much you can’t stop it?”

“I’m dangerously close to bursting, Iris. I don’t think I’ll need to cut nearly as deep as I might in a more natural case. And if I time this correctly, the morphine should still be in its full effect. The pain would be dulled, if anything. The way my nerves are at this point,  _ any _ feeling would be a welcome change from all this... all this constant  _ stretching _ .” 

None of his explanations could assuage the pervasive fear that nagged at Iris. “I understand all the thought you put into this, but... you’ll be alone.”

“That’s the plan.” Somehow, Peter seemed nonplussed.

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“Iris, once I go through with this, I don’t know what will become of me,” he said. “If anything happens, I don’t intend for you or anyone else to be around and have to see it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Peter said nothing to that, only gazed into Iris’s eyes across the expanse of covers between them. At long last, it seemed he had nothing more to say. Out of instinct, Iris reached her hand out and brushed her fingertips over his pale, overheated cheek. 

“I just want you to survive,” she whispered. “ _ All three _ of you.”

“I know.” He overlapped her hand with his own, cupping her palm around the edge of his face. “And that is what I have every intention of doing.”

Iris’s heart thrummed steadily in her chest, and she scooted herself closer, intertwining her fingers with Peter’s. She let her hands wander over him, tracing delicate lines across his skin and clothes. He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly as her fingers memorized the details of his face, his neck, his shoulders, arms and back. Finally, they came to rest where they almost always ended up. She laid her palm softly against his enormously swollen stomach, stroking it gently and feeling the faint movement from within. She leaned in close to her employer’s middle, placed a delicate kiss on it and whispered, “I can’t wait until I can see you.”

For a second, she thought she felt the soft stirrings grow stronger, then a shiver as Peter wearily laughed. “Neither can they.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is.  
> And here I am, barely awake, just as I always was in my first updates.  
> The cycle is nearly complete, and I hope everyone is enjoying watching a male scientist go into labor.  
> This sure is a fun time.  
> See you next chapter.


	27. Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet there are probably several people out there who have been dreading this chapter. I know my beta definitely did.  
> You'll see why when I mention the warnings.  
> Fuck me if I know why I keep procrastinating posting these things. Probably because this is another chapter that I felt was incredibly important, and I kept thinking to myself "oh no, now is not a good night to post it, I have to pick the RIGHT night to do this." But the thing is, I want this shit show over and done with before I have to get shipped back to college this fall. And if I want to do that, I only have three weeks left.  
> Good thing that I finally finished actually writing this bastard.  
> Yes, you read correctly, the writing portion is finished. So one of these evenings I'm probably going to end up just blast-posting the rest of the entire story. Prepare your anus.   
> In other news, I really hope your anuses are extra prepared for this one.  
> I want to go through the habitual thankings of my beta volatileSoloiste for agreeing to read this chapter. I'm still sorry. But I read their dubcon 2Doc fanfiction in return, so I guess this evens out in some vast cosmic way. Also thanks in some vague part to cicada_s for showing some vague interest in this story for a short time and boosting my confidence. And Devin doesn't have and AO3, but get your ass in here and join the rest of us in the dumpster. You know you belong here.  
> (insert usual requests to tag all related posts as "fic: alaout" or "fic: artificial life" or some such variation and blacklist as "sexpg")  
> and before you go any further, PLEASE DO READ THESE TRIGGER WARNINGS.  
> TRIGGER WARNING: VIVID DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOOD AND GORE, amateurly performed medical procedures, scheming behind people's backs, some minor medically sanctioned drug use, ghost intervention and a fuck ton of stress. but primarily the descriptions of gore. That's a big one right there.  
> I hope you're ready for this.

 

The lights were flickering. Being immersed in darkness was the absolute last thing that Peter needed.

He wasn’t sure what real difference the lights made. It wasn’t as if he could even see in the first place. He was all but blind from the pain, the smoldering and writhing of his insides. Tears stung his eyes and blurred what little was left of his vision. The lab table’s stand was cold against his back. His legs were numb. His whole body trembled as another agonizing tremor passed through him, and he screamed.

Nothing answered him. There was only empty space, nothing but the humming fluorescent lights to comfort him, and a fat lot of good they were doing now. It was all his fault. He was the one who had decided to go through with this on his own. He should have known that it was a bad idea, should have kept in mind all the numerous ways that the endeavor could go wrong, but by some mad miracle, nothing had managed to stick. Blood oozed from the small, shallow slash across his abdomen. It flowed slowly, but the incision stung, far more than it should have. He couldn’t finish it. He’d lost track of the crafting razor long ago.

He had thought the morphine would be enough. He had been sorely, sorely mistaken.

Peter cried out again, and nobody heard him. In the distance, something clicked, and the lab was drenched in blackness.

* * *

Four hours earlier, Johona came into Peter’s room to find that her friend was already lying in bed. She found it surprising that he’d managed to drift off without the painkiller to aid him. Then again, Iris had notified her that he had fainted again. That sort of thing had been happening far too often.

The memory of their conversation two days earlier surfaced in the back of Johona’s mind. She abruptly pushed it back. This was no time to be thinking about such things. Wondering for too long might cause her to be late.

Johona leaned over her sleeping friend and placed a hand on his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. “Peter, wake up. I’ll be leaving soon, and you need your next dose.”

Peter twitched in his sleep, huffed, and finally his eyes fluttered a little ways open. “Hnn... Jo?”

“That’s right, it’s me,” she said as she set her medical bag down on the mattress next to him. His eyes closed again while she assembled the syringe. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake again. “Hey. None of that just yet. You need to give me your arm first.”

With some reluctance, Peter wriggled his arm free of the confines of the sheets and pulled his sleeve back to expose the soft, snow-white skin of his inner arm. She slid on the tourniquet and flicked at his skin to bring the deep blue veins to the surface. He winced a little as the needle went in, but stayed drowsily still. He remained motionless as Johona bandaged his arm. “All this is a bit unprompted,” she said. “You falling asleep so easily without the painkiller, I mean.”

“Hm,” Peter hummed in some semblance of a response.

“I can’t be sure what this means for you,” she mused. A thought rose in the back of her mind, joined by a low giggle in her chest. “Wouldn’t it be a gift if you gave birth while unconscious? No telling how to make the same thing happen twice, though.” She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to get from a conversation with someone half-asleep, and yet she kept talking.

“Maybe it’s because I was so worn out by the last episode I had.”

“I know. Iris told me you had a terrible recurrence a few hours ago.”

“I don’t mean this past night. I mean this past week.”

Peter was surprisingly coherent for being barely awake. Johona knew exactly what he was getting at, and it stung. “Listen, Peter, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“You have?”

“Yes. But...” She rested her hand on his arm. “I don’t think we should have that conversation right now.”

He sighed and nuzzled his face against the pillow, his eyes drifting closed. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you when I get back from the hospital.”

“Okay,” he repeated in a whisper.

“We’re going to fix this. I’m promising you that, got it?”

There was no response. She’d had him awake for less than a minute, then just like that, he was out again. He would sleep like the dead with morphine in his veins, she was sure. She hoped that Iris would try and get some rest at the same time. She had seemed more distraught than usual when they had talked that morning. It was easy for Johona to guess at her reasons. She only hoped that Iris wouldn’t be too tense to sleep. The maid’s heart had been through hell and back throughout the whole ordeal, and she could hardly imagine the kind of toll that it had taken on her mental state. If things went according to plan, it was imperative that Iris have a clear head when she returned in the afternoon.

It worried her, though, what might happen while she was gone. 

Again, she remembered their theory and the posed solution. If that was how it would go- if the twins were going to tear their way through Peter’s skin- maybe it really would be a blessing for her friend not to be awake when the time came. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Pain had a purpose, she recalled, and if something went wrong that he wasn’t aware of... perhaps, even, if something happened to one of the twins and he wasn’t coherent enough to realize...

Johona pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she walked out of the room. He’d managed to hold out this long. Only a few more hours. She chanted that note to herself over and over until it became a mantra, a soothing hum to muffle the noise in her head.  _ A few more hours. A few more hours. _

She found Iris sitting at the bottom of the stairs, leaning her head against the banister. The maid straightened up at the sound of her footsteps and turned around to face her. “I could tell you how I think he’s doing,” she quietly remarked, “but I’m not exactly qualified to say very much.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, it can’t be far off from my prognosis,” Johona responded. “He’s close. Dangerously so.”

“You said that a while back.”

“I know, but this might be a different stage. The fact that he’s managed to sleep without morphine might be his nervous system trying to save itself from experiencing whatever pain is up ahead.”

“Oh.” The response was hollow, falling flat as Iris spoke. Her gaze was glassy, and Johona was acutely aware of how absolutely exhausted she seemed to be. There were unignorable shadows under her eyes, and Johona found herself wondering if Iris had been getting any rest at all since the first of the year.

“Iris, I have something to ask of you,” she said. The maid didn’t say anything, but Johona knew she was listening. “Are you a light sleeper?”

“Lighter than some,” Iris replied.

“I’m sure that by now, Peter is absolutely dead to the world, and chances are that he won’t notice you if you crawl into bed with him.” She saw Iris’s face flush a little at the mention of her and Peter sharing a bed, despite the fact that it was old news to all of them. “The way he is now, chances are that armageddon itself wouldn’t wake him. I need you to stay with him and keep track of whatever happens.”

Iris nodded vehemently and stood up. “I’ll do my best to stay alert.”

“Th-that wasn’t quite what I meant,” Johona clarified. “I’m not telling you that you aren’t allowed to sleep. You have to. In fact, I’m insisting you do. The real issue is that he is medicated and you aren’t. I’m trusting that whatever won’t wake him will catch your attention.” She placed her hand on Iris’s shoulder and gave a fortifying squeeze. “I won’t need you to be awake now nearly as much as I will after I return.”

At that, she felt Iris turn tense. “Why is that?”

“I’m going to need your help with something,” Johona began to explain. “Peter and I have been discussing some things. I don’t have the time to tell you everything right now, but I will. Everything will be sorted out when I’m back. And who knows? You might be a mother by tonight.” She gave Iris an encouraging smile.

Her friend remained stalled for a second, but eventually she returned Johona’s sentiment. “Do you really think that’s when it’ll be?”

“I’m sure,” she definitively declared. Leaving it at that, she crossed the foyer and walked out the door.

It would have to happen tonight. She had taken her sweet time deciding, and Peter was tired of waiting.

* * *

Peter wished that he hadn’t already been awake by the time Iris came into his room. 

He was staring at the weak January sunlight streaming past the curtains when he heard the hinges of the door creak open. With a huff of effort, he rolled over to see Iris creeping into the room and quietly shutting the door behind her. She saw him move and stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening with a hint of surprise. “Oh. You’re already awake,” she noted. 

“It appears I am,” he deadpanned in reply.

“I thought the morphine would have put you out.”

“Not quite. It takes the edge off the pain, but it doesn’t numb me entirely. The twins took care to wake me up of their own accord.”

Iris sighed and approached the bed. “You’ve still managed to rest a little, haven’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he replied. “I really  _ was _ rather put out when Johona came in, and for a while after.”

“I suppose that’ll have to do, then,” she conceded. She leaned down over him with her arms outstretched, and Peter let them wrap around him and pull him to his feet. His legs ached as his excessive weight settled onto them. 

He leaned against Iris and took a deep breath. “Just think. This is the last time you’ll have to do this.”

“It’s strange,” she said, showing him a faint smile. “I almost think I’m going to miss it.”

Briefly, time itself seemed to slow, and Peter stood like a statue with Iris’s arms circling his waist and his own draped over her shoulders. The room was silent, save for her breath and the nervous rhythm of his own heart. Her eyes were warm and he wanted to drown in them, having her close made him feel safer than he’d ever been in his life, and for a second his whole mind was consumed by the thought of kissing her again, this time coherently and without the haze of a nightmare hanging over his head.

It was only for a second, though. The combination of the pain in his legs and the incessant kicking of the twins made it hard to forget that there were more pressing matters at hand.

The plan that Peter had hatched didn’t strictly necessitate the disappointingly short hours of sleep that they had managed to catch, but they had both feared the consequences of leaving them out of the equation. Time was of the essence, and Peter had been keeping track of how long the effects of Johona’s morphine lasted. The first two to three hours he was completely numb, and from then onward his nerves gradually regained function. By six hours, the pain returned. That was the schedule to which they were bound, and that was the longest that the ordeal could last. Any longer and he risked exposure to unknowable pain.

“Are you sure you still want to go through with this?” Iris asked.

Instead of answering, Peter worried his lip between his teeth and studied Iris’s face. It was somewhat crumpled, faint lines of concern etching into her forehead. He was sure he must look the same way, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. It was either this, or something else much worse.

“I’m not sure what other choice we have,” he finally replied.

Iris let her gaze slip to the floor and said nothing else. Her hands gently brushed across his belly as she took her arms back from his waist, and not a second later she had taken his elbow and started towards the door. Together they traveled down the hall and staggered down the stairs and across the first floor toward the library. Iris didn’t let him go for a second, even when they were on flat, solid ground.

Rabbit was waiting for them when they arrived, perched in an armchair with her soft gloves on, covered by a blanket and Kepler sitting in her lap. The second she laid eyes on her creator, she set Kepler down on the cushions, sprang to her feet and scurried towards him. “H-hi, Peter!” she elatedly greeted him, somehow managing to keep her voice hushed.

“Hello, there,” he responded, giving her a weary smile. “Did Iris tell you to meet us here?”

“Yep,” the automaton affirmed with a nod. “She said I had to k-ke-keep watch an’ make sure Spine and Jon don’t wander in here.”

“And it seems that you’ve done just that,” Iris proudly pointed out.

Rabbit grinned at her, then turned her attention back to her creator. “H-hey, Peter... I know the lab’s this way, and... I k-kept wonderin’... is this b-because... b-be-because my o-other brothers are coming now?”

Peter sighed. “I’m afraid it is.”

“Y-you’re afraid?” Rabbit squealed.

“No!” Peter answered automatically, but he was all too quick to correct himself. “I mean... I’m not all that frightened by the idea, I only... well... you remember what I told you, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she solemnly replied. “I-I do.”

“Good. I’m going to need you to keep remembering. You and Iris will need to keep watch of the library and make sure your brothers don’t come near the laboratory door. Now, I don’t know how much sound carries from down there, but something might. Now, no matter what you hear, I’m going to need you to  _ not _ go into the lab after me, no matter what you hear from the other side of the door.”

Rabbit had her mouth open and ready to protest, but her jaw quivered, seemingly unable to continue the formation of words. “B-but...” she stuttered. “B-b-b-but... w-wha-what if...”

“ _ No matter what _ ,” Peter repeated, setting his hand firmly on Rabbit’s blanketed shoulder. “I need to do this alone. You understand, don’t you?”

Rabbit’s mouth clenched shut and she stared down at the floor. “I-I really don’t. But if th-that’s th-th-the way you say it’s g-g-g-gotta be.”

Iris stepped in then, finally letting go of Peter in exchange for his creation. “Hey. Don’t be upset,” she gently said, taking Rabbit’s gloved hands in hers. “He’ll be back before you know it. And in the meantime, I’ll be with you.”

A tremor ran through Rabbit’s frame, but she managed to compose herself and let out an exhale of steam. “Okay,” she said. “B-but... c-ca-can I just say one last thing to ‘em?”

Even in the circumstances, Peter’s heart grew warm. “Of course you can.”

An ecstatic smile lit up on the automaton’s face, and she knelt down on the floor to bring herself level with Peter’s belly, delicately placing her hands on either side. “I-I know it’s g-g-gonna have to hurt when you come out of Peter, but try as hard as you can not to, okay?” She leaned a little closer, and her gears hummed with excitement. “I c-can’t wait to see you. Good luck.” She rose to her feet and looked her creator in the eyes. “Y-y-you need good luck too. I’m w-w-wishin’ for everybody.”

“I’m sure that it’ll work wonders,” Iris assured her. Finally, Rabbit seemed satisfied enough and stepped back. Iris resumed her place at Peter’s side, and they started towards the lab.

“H-hey, Peter?” she called after them before they disappeared.

Peter paused in the doorway. “Yes?”

“M-ma-make sure they know I love them, okay?”

_ What? _ Of all the things he’d been thinking she might say, not a single one of them came close to that. He wasn’t even entirely sure she knew what she was saying, but there was no time to question. “I... okay. I will,” he agreed.

It was a small struggle down the winding stairs to the sub-basement lab. Once there, Peter went about gathering the materials he would need for the procedure. Or, more accurately, he gathered as much as he could. By the time he reached the lab, his body was already thoroughly exhausted, and Iris had to be the one to do the majority of the gathering. 

In a matter of minutes, the tools were set out on one of the lab tables; a bunsen burner, a box of matches, a beaker, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, an extra pair of work gloves and a pile of clean rags sat in an orderly row atop the metal slab. Iris looked over the arrangement as she set down the last tool that her employer requested. The short-bladed crafting razor clattered as she placed it beside the rest of the materials.

“You’re sure this is going to work?” she timorously asked.

“There’s no evidence to say it won’t,” Peter replied. 

“I wasn’t referring to the method. I meant you doing this alone.”

“As long as the morphine holds out, I should be able to manage.”

Iris nodded along, but she didn’t seem convinced. She chewed her lip and tugged absent-mindedly at the hem of her apron, unwilling to meet Peter’s eyes. She was silent for a painful moment before she finally murmured, “Is it wrong of me to be so afraid?”

“No,” Peter answered straightaway. He took Iris’s hand and held it between both of his own. “Listen. If I don’t come up by the time Johona returns, then all bets are off and you do whatever you deem necessary.”

Iris’s free hand joined his, and she looked down at their overlapping fingers. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I don’t think it will. But if it does... just know that if I fail, I’m leaving everything up to you.” He raised his hand to cup it under Iris’s chin and raise her face up so, at long last, he could look into her eyes. “I trust you, Iris,” he stated. Never before, he thought, had he heard words that rang so true.

She gazed blankly at him, seeming almost startled. “Peter... P-Peter, I...” she stammered. He felt her hands shaking against his own, and he waited for her to say something more, but nothing ever came. Instead, he found Iris leaning forward and rising up on her toes to press her lips softly to his.

They stayed for only a second, and before he knew it, they were gone again. It took a moment for everything to register. She’d kissed him. That made this the second time. He realized that he had never closed his eyes. Wasn’t it rude not to do that during a kiss? There had to be some way to remedy that. He could only think of one. Without thinking, he pulled her close and kissed her again. This time, they lingered there for a moment, long enough for Peter’s hand to brush Iris’s cheek and for her arm to find its way around his waist. Then a familiar squirming ache in his stomach reminded him why they were there in the first place, and they reluctantly separated.

Iris’s eyes remained locked with his. “I love you,” she unsteadily said.

Peter’s throat felt tight, but somehow he found the strength to speak. He had to. “I love you too.”

“Please be careful.”

“I will.”

“You’ll be upstairs with us soon, then?”

“I promise I will.”

He felt like a piece of stalled machinery, unable to move. Maybe just unwilling. Iris stared up at him, her eyes flitting all over his face and never leaving, like she was taking her time to memorize every last detail, studying like it was the last time she would see it. Briefly he wondered why he would jump to such a conclusion so fast. Peter’s heart shivered, and he realized it was because he was doing the exact same thing.

Finally Iris stepped back, keeping her eyes on him, as if it pained her to turn away. She had to eventually. Peter had to lean against the lab table as he watched her go. He waited until he heard the heavy door in the library swing shut before he finally let himself move again. 

He made quick work of setting up his materials. The burner was connected to the gas pipe under the tabletop and he lit with a match from the box. He opened the bottle of alcohol and poured it out until the beaker was halfway full. With the gloves protecting his hands, he picked up the razor and held it over the open flame. When the edge of the blade began to glow, he pulled it away and plunged it into the alcohol. The metal hissed and sent a cloud of steam up from the beaker. As the harsh sound filled his ears, Peter felt the twins starting to kick, sending a dull pain rippling through his insides. He cursed quietly under his breath, hoping against hope that he hadn’t waited too long and that the morphine’s effects hadn’t already started to wane, before putting a hand to his belly to try and calm them. “Please stay still,” he whispered to them. “It won’t be much longer. I promise.”

When it seemed that the frantic movement had died down, Peter took up the razor and alcohol beaker and slowly lowered himself to the floor. His legs burned from the effort and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to simply let himself fall. When he finally had his back against the base of the table, the twins suddenly resumed their squirming. Peter winced as the unexpected thrash in his insides stirred up another agonizing spasm. He felt it all across his body this time, even stronger than the last. He gritted his teeth and tried whispering to the twins again. It didn’t do a single thing to stop them. Then the panic began to set in. 

He couldn’t go through with the operation if they kept moving. What if the razor accidentally hit one of them while the incision was being made? Peter’s hand tightened around the handle of the blade as he bitterly scolded himself.  _ Why the hell didn’t I think of this before? _

A sudden, violent jolt in his core interrupted his thoughts; Peter gasped as a hot, crackling synapse pulsed through every nerve in his body. It was no matter what he had and hadn’t thought of, he realized. Whatever details he had missed, it was too late for him to back out now. He suppressed an agonized moan as the waves of painful energy persisted, made even worse by the now-constant kicking. His skin was straining to hold together; he felt dangerously close to simply splitting open. Either he executed the plan now and finished it cleanly, or he would soon have to face something much worse.

His hands were shaking as he pulled off his work gloves. He tried to steel himself and stay composed, since he needed a steady hand now more than he ever had in his life. The searing pain in his core was growing stronger by the second, wavering less and less. Taking deep, measured breaths, he forced his hand to be still as he pulled back the hem of his shirt and brought the razor toward his bruised, bulging abdomen. It was only a cut, he told himself, trying in vain to relax. A single cut. He just barely registered the cool bite of the edge lining up with his skin. It was hot, nearly numb at the surface combined with torturous roiling underneath. He winced as the pain crescendoed, his fingers tightening around the warming handle.  _ Now press it down, just a little _ , he instructed himself.

The sting was faint. He barely felt the blade go in at all. The twins weren’t thrashing too violently so far, and if he worked fast, he could finish the incision before they moved again. A soft whimper escaped him as he tried to drag the razor a little further. He hadn’t thought his skin would be this tough. From the outside it always seemed so thin, so fragile. The razor’s edge bit into his flesh, lengthening the incision behind it. It was hurting more now, the subtle sting evolving into a sharp, screaming pain. He didn’t know why. His nerves should have been fried already. He felt the warm, wet sensation of blood oozing out and onto his fingers. Droplets crawled across his taut skin. He didn’t dare stop, though. 

Then something inside him broke.

Raw, unbridled energy exploded out from his core. It blazed a path across his nerves, twisted around his spine and erupted in the back of his skull. With a sudden convulsion, his arm jerked back, and he ripped the razor’s blade out of his flesh. Peter’s vision went white, and he screamed. 

Something clattered, metal against tile. He realized his hand was empty, palm and fingers still sticky with blood. The razor had disappeared. He tried to feel for it on the floor, but his body didn’t seem willing to move. His legs were losing feeling, the pain in his core had turned his muscles into stone, and the twins thrashed relentlessly, pushing him back with every move he tried to make. 

Scalding-hot tears had started to stream from his eyes, and he clutched at his abdomen, smearing his hands with more blood. His palms were scalded against his skin. No matter what he did, there was only pain. 

All he could do was make it worse.

As his tortured cries rang out in the empty space, the lights began to flicker.

* * *

Iris’s nails were already short, so there was barely anything to bite, but she had spent most of her life making do with what might seem to not be enough. Her fingertips were raw, and she began thinking that she would honestly be surprised if her phalanges weren’t entirely bare by the time she saw Peter again.

The armchair where she sat was surrounded by discarded books. There was nothing in the house to be cleaned at the moment, and little else that could be done that didn’t involve her leaving the manor. Right then, leaving was the one thing that she absolutely refused to do. She’d tried reading to pass the time, but she couldn’t seem to keep her head on straight. Words and sentences blurred together, and even the most lurid selections of Peter’s library couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to even darker places.

Iris sat with her knees pressed against her chest, chewing relentlessly at her fingers and staring at the floor. Her nerves were so tense that she almost sensed Rabbit’s approaching presence before she heard a set of clanking, scampering footsteps in the hallway.

Her head turned seemingly of its own accord to face the door just as Rabbit slowed her pace and crept through. “H-he-hey, Iris,” she greeted her. “Anything happen with Peter yet?”

Feeling empty, she shook her head. “No,” she said dismally. “Nothing yet.”

Steam hissed from Rabbit’s vents, sounding almost like a disappointed sigh. “B-but if nothing’s happened yet, then w-whe-when  _ is _ something gonna happen?”

“I don’t know.” She hated being unable to give Rabbit answers, now more than ever before. “I-it’s just... these things take time. You can’t make them move any faster or slower.”  _ Though that’s exactly what he’s trying to do _ , she thought to herself.

“Aw,” Rabbit moped, setting herself down on the floor by Iris’s feet. “I was re-really hoping I would’ve seen my b-bro-bro-brothers by now.”

“Believe me, Rabbit, I’d love nothing more than to see them right this minute,” Iris tersely admitted. “I’d love nothing more than to see all three of them.  _ All _ three of them, together, safe and unharmed.” A shiver ran down her spine as she spoke. Putting her hopes into words only made her fears manifest in her mind with increasing ferocity. Why wasn’t she down there with him? Why had he decided to go through with this on his own? He wouldn’t be able to do it. He was capable of quite a few things, but not one of those involved deliberately opening himself up. She didn’t dare imagine the pain he was in, the fear that must have been racing through his veins. She should have stayed.

“Hey, I-Iris, I thought you were g-g-gonna help Peter in the lab.”

And with that, Iris finally snapped.

“I wanted to!” she shrilled. “I wanted to, but he told me he had to do it alone! I would have stayed and done whatever he needed me to, no matter what it was. I would have held the knife. I would have cut him myself if that was what he needed. I...I should have known this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have gone along with it. I should have just let the morphine keep him under, let him sleep through it all... and then Johona... oh, god, what am I going to tell Johona? When she talked to me... this morning, she said...” All of a sudden, Iris’s felt her chest cave in, and in place of words she let out a weak, shuddering moan. She buried her face in her hands, raked her raw fingers into her curls and pulled as hard as her scalp could stand. Any kind of real pain would distract her from the intangible one that was crushing her heart in its grasp.

“Iris.”

Blinded by her palms, Iris felt unseen hands gently poking at her forearms. Fingers wedged their way between her hands and face, and in the cracks of light, she recognized the stitches of her own knitting.

“I know you don’t th-think you’re doin’ enough,” Rabbit said softly. “B-bu-but you’re doin’ everything you can.”

“But... but I’m not, Rabbit. I’m really not.”

“You told me that everything helps. Even the small... s-smallest things can help a lot.”

Iris looked at her employer’s creation with bleary, bloodshot eyes, her chin now resting in her hands. Rabbit couldn’t have been serious. She was doing absolutely nothing... Nothing but what she was asked. And that was normal for her, she realized. Peter had asked her to keep her distance, and so she had. It was no different from what they had asked of Rabbit. And now here the both of them were, the automaton giving her the same reassurances that she herself had used.

The maid sniffed and ran her fingers through her hair, this time with no malice towards herself. “You’re right,” she quietly agreed. “You’re right, Rabbit. I’m... I’m only doing what I can.”

“Iris... If you’re s-so worried about Peter... a-an’ he knows about it all... and if all this is g-g-go-gonna hurt him and everything else, then... th-then... why’d he tell you not to stay with him?”

She looked at Rabbit and cocked her head, confused. “What would make you ask a question like that?”

“Don’t know,” the automaton replied with a shrug. “I-I was just thinkin’... I m-m-mean... I never felt it before, but pain seems bad. I-it seems k-kinda... kinda... scary. If I was gonna feel as much pain as he was, I don’t think I’d w-wanna be alone.”

“Well, Peter  _ does _ .” Iris sighed dismally and let her gaze slide back to the floor. “It might not make a lot of sense to you, but I think... I’m not sure, but I  _ think _ it isn’t because he’s afraid of what the pain will do to him. See, Peter isn’t the kind of person who likes to rely on others too much. Maybe he thinks he’s dead weight or something like that, even though he isn’t at all. It must be... he didn’t want anyone to see or hear what happens to him.” She leaned her head against the backrest and squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know if he’s embarrassed or if he wants to spare us. It might be both those reasons at once.”

“Oh.” Rabbit didn’t talk for some time after that, only sat on the floor and fidgeted with her gloves, seeming to be deep in thought. When she finally spoke, she’d moved on to something else entirely. “Well, if P-Peter thinks about you an’ me an’ Johona so m-much, how much do you think he thinks about my brothers?”

“The Jon and The Spine?”

“N-no, the ones he’s takin’ out of his body right now. Those ones,” she elaborated. “I b-bet he thinks about them a lot.”

Iris nodded vehemently. “Oh, he does. They’ve been just about the only thing he’s been able to talk about lately.”

“I bet he’s gonna do a great job takin’ care of them. An’ you’re so worried, I be you think about them even more than he does. Th-that’s gotta mean you’ll be great, too.”

In spite of her anxiety, Iris found herself giggling. “Peter and I... you think we’ll work well together?”

“Well, yeah!” Rabbit exclaimed. “I th-thought that was gonna be the plan! Peter is gonna be the f-f-father, you’re their mother, an’ Johona... I g-g-g-guess she can be their mother, too? Nothing wrong with havin’ more people to take care of you, r-ri-right?””

Iris laughed again. “I like the sound of that plan,” she lilted, her face now shining with a giddy smile. Then, all of a sudden, it was gone. Something else had come to mind, and in an instant everything else had been pushed aside. “Oh god. We don’t have a plan,” she mused. “What are we going to do after? And when Johona gets back... oh, god.”

“B-but, Iris, I thought... I thought you liked the plan that...”

Rabbit was rambling, but Iris could barely hear her. Her head was swimming with details they had forgotten, small, mundane things that had been all but erased by the overhanging fear of what would come in a future nearer than Iris had anticipated. With a swift movement, the maid bolted to her feet and turned to her employer’s creation. “Rabbit, I’m going to need to ask a huge favor of you.”

Not so surprisingly, Rabbit brightened up at the suggestion. “What’ya need, I-Iris?”

“First of all, where are The Spine and The Jon right now?”

“They’re upstairs an’ playin’ with Kepler, last I saw.”

“Good. Make sure they stay that way. Or any way, really, as long as it’s away from the library. I’m going to need you to watch the door to the lab. Make sure they keep their distance from here. You can leave the library to lead them away if you have to. If they stay away, though, I’ll need you to stay as close to the lab as you can without going in. No matter what you hear, don’t go in under any circumstances aside from Peter himself coming up and telling you that you can.”

Rabbit nodded along as she listened. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Iris gushed. She put her arms around Rabbit’s skeletal shoulders and left a kiss on the forehead of her prototype face plate. “I promise I’ll try to be fast. I’ll return as soon as I possibly can.”

“W-wait,” Rabbit stammered, taken aback. “W-w-where are you going?”

“I’m heading into town for a little while,” Iris explained over her shoulder as she rushed towards the door. “There are quite a few things that I need to take care of before I can take care of anyone else.”

* * *

All that Peter’s eyes could register was the blackness. Then they adjusted, and he was blinking, barely aware of the sizable pool of soft blue light that surrounded him.

It was him. The glow inside him was brighter than ever, not quite so blinding as it had been in his nightmare, but enough to illuminate the empty lab like the low glow of a flickering candle. He leaned his head back against the table, panting heavily while his eyes darted frantically around.  _ What the hell happened to the lights? _ he wondered in a brief moment of lucidity.  _ Nothing was wrong before. Could the matter have fluctuated and... Or is it because I’m... Could I have... _

Nothing was finished. The pain always interrupted. It thrashed and scraped at the inside of his skull, pulsing in time to the waves that surged out from his core. He gasped and moaned, having lost all hope of containing himself in the face of pure agony. And now there was fear as well, if it hadn’t been there before. He had lost the scalpel and couldn’t finish the only thing he had come here to start, and even with his internal glow, the darkness unsettled him even further. His heart was racing, pulsing with such fury that he was sure his sternum would break. And the twins. They wouldn’t stop moving. Dear god,  _ why _ wouldn’t they stop moving?

Then, at the very periphery of his circle of light, Peter spied something.

His breath caught in his throat, and suddenly his lungs were refusing to breathe. Every last bit of him was frozen. Pain still laid waste to his whole body, and with every passing second the lack of oxygen made it worse, but still he didn’t dare to attempt any sort of movement. In the middle distance, just beyond his circle of light, he’d seen something. His blood ran cold as the realization slowly sank in. He was not alone anymore.

Motion flickered at the edge of the light again, this time straight ahead of him. Peter stared directly at it, never breaking his gaze. The twins continued kicking, mercilessly brutalizing him from the inside. The ache built up, gaining momentum until finally Peter was forced to take a gasp of air into his lungs and cry out again. Tears blurred his vision, and he quickly swiped them away with a trembling hand. When his eyes were clear again, he saw a familiar face standing at the very edge of the light. 

His palpitating heart was gripped with grief. Of course, of all the people who would see him in such a state of misery. Of course it had to be her. He wished he could be embarrassed, but his mind had run out of space for something so trivial. He was only afraid, only suffering and wishing desperately for it to end. He struggled to reach out towards her, his hand violently shaking, and weakly called out to her. “De...Delilah.”

She stepped closer into the light. The glow made her look pallid and ghastly, but it was still her. Her foggy blue eyes were fixed on him, and her face was crumpled in concern. She was moving slowly, like she was afraid to come any closer. Peter didn’t blame her. He could only imagine what she was feeling, seeing him sprawled on the floor, convulsing in agony, stained with his own blood, his straining, damaged belly exposed and bleeding. It wasn’t a time for imagining, though. In that moment, he was barely able to think, and only a few words would leave his lips.

“H-help me,” he choked.

Delilah rushed towards him like a wisp of smoke, and in a second she was hovering over him and putting a cold, delicate finger over his lips. He shuddered, and she shushed him. She ran her fingers through his hair once, then turned her attention downward, laying her hands gently against his abdomen. Almost immediately he felt a violent thrash from inside, sending another pain ripping through his nerves and forcing a sharp, piercing cry from his lungs. Delilah backed away instantly and looked at his face again, then reached out to put an icy hand on his forehead. She stared into his eyes, and as he struggled to catch his breath, he slowly began to understand. She wanted him to remain still.

He tried to. It was hard; his chest heaved with every labored breath he took, and the twins were still kicking as fervently as ever. Delilah’s cold touch was like a blessing, though. She offset the blaze in his stomach, just enough for him to do as she asked. Peter tried to remain calm. He didn’t have much of a choice other than to trust her, but it wasn’t a difficult task. He only had to try not to be afraid.

And he wasn’t, until he heard the sound of metal and glass clinking together. Peter’s eyes strained to see what was happening. Delilah was out of his field of vision again. She had asked him to stay still, but it was getting increasingly challenging as the noise went on. Just as Peter’s anxiety reached its peak, she appeared again, her face solemn but oddly serene. She looked into his eyes for a moment, just long enough to reassure him, before she returned her focus to his body. Her palm ghosted over his skin, and Peter felt the frantic squirming inside him die down a bit. For just a second, all his pain seemed to subside. Then he saw the glint of his razor in Delilah’s hand.

Not a second later, she slashed it across his abdomen, and an earsplitting scream tore from his throat.

He had lost all will to move. Paralyzed by the pain, he rested limply against the lab table. He wheezed, his lungs fighting to expand. Without warning, Delilah plunged her frozen hands into the gaping wound. 

Peter shrieked again, tears squeezing painfully from his eyes, wordlessly begging her to stop, but she never did. She only dug deeper. He felt her searching around inside of him, searing his flesh with freezer burn while he twitched helplessly, his body too exhausted to resist but just strong enough to cry for help that wasn’t there. Then she paused, and something shifted. The slash in his belly stretched, he wailed and begged for mercy, and finally Delilah pulled it loose. 

For a brief second, Peter felt as if he could catch his breath, but almost as soon as Delilah had let him go she had her hand wrist-deep in his belly again, still searching. Another minute of senseless screaming and white-hot agony, and something live and squirming was dragged through the incision. The bitter cold hands had disappeared from him again. There was a hissing of steam. The sound of Peter’s rasping breath over his own hammering heart. And then, at the very edges of his senses, a high-pitched cry.

Slowly, Peter’s vision came back to him. It dawned on him that the lights had flickered back on. His body felt leaden; he was exhausted, deflated somehow. Seconds passed while he tried to catch his breath. He was barely aware of himself, let alone what had happened in the lab around him. But that crying. It was loud and shrill, and so... so... insistent.

Although it pained him, Peter straightened himself up to try and get his bearings. Steam was still rising someplace. The noise he’d heard was fainter now, and the vapor had been rising from a vast, shallow pool of thick, translucent blue fluid that was spilled all over the floor, leaving the lower half of his body uncomfortably warm and soaking wet. The crying on the other hand, was just as strong as ever. It didn’t take him long at all to realize why.

Lying on the floor in front of him was the tiny, pale form of a baby. It looked as if it had been left there by accident, sprawled out on the floor, pitifully squealing and reaching its small arms out to whoever was near. The little creature kicked and struggled relentlessly against the thin blue membrane that surrounded its body, twisted itself into layers, forming a thickened cord that led... Well, it led directly into the long, burning cut in Peter’s abdomen before disappearing under his skin. Its cries pitched higher, growing more desperate as he stared. At first, Peter was confused. Then it sank in. He was looking at his child. It was one of his twins. 

His instincts took only a second to kick in. The membranous cord between them was starting to wither in the cold, harsh air of the lab. Peter snatched the razor from the beaker of alcohol and severed the cord. He tied it into a quick knot before pulling the remains of the membrane off of the infant. It wailed even louder, its soft, vulnerable skin even more exposed. Thinking fast, Peter reached up and felt blindly for the clean rags he’d placed on the table. Upon finding them, he hastily grabbed a handful, unfolded them and wrapped the bundle of fabric around the crying baby before cradling it close to his chest. It was a boy, he realized. A son. He had a son.

As if by magic, the moment it was close to him, the baby’s incessant crying stopped. It was then that Peter realized how eerily silent the lab was. The realization hit even faster the second time; they were twins. There was another cord. He’d only heard the crying of one.

The second little membrane-bound parcel was placed haphazardly, exactly like the first one, just within his reach. The cord was deteriorating fast, and the membrane was becoming dry and sticky, shriveling into a tight, suffocating chrysalis. It was the first one Delilah had pulled from him; the one he hadn’t felt moving. In a panic, Peter lunged for it and began tearing at the cocoon. The tiny thing inside wasn’t quite as pale as the first, its skin closer to blue than white, but such details fell to the side when Peter saw that it wasn’t breathing.

Leaving his son to rest in his lap, he cut the sibling’s cord and tied it off before ripping the rest of the casing away. Another boy, he saw. It was smaller than the other; maybe weaker, Peter couldn’t help thinking as the cogs in his head ground madly on, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do in a situation like this. His son wasn’t breathing. Why wasn’t his son breathing? Fueled by fear and impulse, he pressed his thumb down on the spot just below the baby’s rib cage and squeezed his soft little body. He felt it shudder under his hand, then the infant let out a pitiful cough. He saw vivid blue fluid spurt from his nose and mouth, and not a second later, he let out a shrill, desperate cry of his own. Peter gathered his second son up in his arm and pulled the last of the rags down from the table. It was only a matter of seconds before he too had been wrapped up in cloth and was being nestled against his Peter’s chest.

At long last, Peter let himself fall back against the table. Just outside his field of vision, the steam went on rising, and the sticky pool of translucent blue faded along with it. The two fleshy cords that spilled from his skin gradually disappeared as well, growing dry and withering away before they finally dissolved into thin air. He sighed as he felt their weight disappear. Finally he felt he could breathe again.

The pain wasn’t gone by any means; all along the incision site, his stomach still stung like nothing else, and blood was flowing from the wound in a steady stream. The burning was gone, as were the stretching and straining of his skin. And the fear. It had all but vanished, and that had to be the most important absence of all. In that moment all he knew was relief of the ordeal having ended and the comfort of both his newborn sons, close and warm and  _ alive _ , snuggled up to him. He dipped his head toward the quiet one, who cooed softly in response, and the other pawed at his collarbone and nuzzled against his neck. He had them both, and he couldn’t imagine anything that felt better.

He stayed. He couldn’t be sure for how long. There were no clocks in the lab, only the vague sense that time was passing. All the same, Peter didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to leave this place just yet and interrupt this perfect moment. Well, there was that, and then there was the fact that he didn’t know he could trust his legs to carry him just yet. He remembered Iris waiting for him upstairs. He couldn’t just leave her to wait and panic and wonder at his condition. It was imperative that he return to her. But... but here was so...

Before he could finish the thought, he heard a distant clanking sound, which he quickly recognized as metal against stone. The jarring noise snapped him back to reality, and he clutched the twins tightly to him while he waited for whatever came next. The sounds fell into a rhythm. Footfalls, approaching fast. Not a second later, Rabbit came stumbling down the stairs. 

“P-Peter!” she called out into the empty lab. “Peter, w-whe-where are you? I started hearin’ weird n-noises an’ stuff, and I just f-felt... I-I don’t know... and I thought... I th-tho-thought something might’a happen-en-en-ened!” 

“I’m here, Rabbit,” he called back to her with as much of a voice as his weary throat could manage. “I’m okay.”

Without another word, he heard his invention’s cogs kick into another gear as she sprinted towards him. She skidded to a stop a few feet from him, grabbing the edge of another slab for balance before she slid and crashed. For a moment, she only stared. It must have taken ages for it all to register: the blood on the floor, her creator’s ruined clothes, the glowing expression he felt on his face in spite of everything else. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the two small bundles of cloth resting comfortably in his arms.

“A-are...” she stammered in awe, “Are th-tho-those...”

Peter nodded, a tired but heartfelt smile lighting up on his face. “Yes, they are.”

In an instant, Rabbit’s face was bright with elation. Grinning madly, she fell to her knees and leaned over him to get a better look at her newest brothers. Not a second after she did, her gaze slid down, and the deep gash in his abdomen finally caught her attention. She gasped, her eyes wide and frightened. “P-Peter...” she murmured, her voice quivering. “Peter, y-you’re broken.”

“It’s okay, Rabbit,” he reassured her. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” He glanced down at the laceration. “It isn’t too deep. I’ll heal.” He was almost surprised that she hadn’t noticed sooner. No wonder she was afraid; she’d never seen him get hurt this badly before.

“Y-you... you’ll heal it?” 

“Yes.” For a minute he’d forgotten she didn’t know what that meant. “This will... if I give it time, it’ll fix itself.”

Rabbit didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded anyway, then leaned in to examine the two infants cradled against her creator’s chest. She poked carefully at the edge of the rags with her gloved fingertip, trying to get a good look at their faces. Her cogs whirred as she let out an awestruck giggle. “Th-the-they’re so little,” she remarked.

“Just like I said they would be,” Peter replied breathlessly. For a moment, he let Rabbit linger, watching as she studied the two small creatures in her inventor’s arms, speechless and enraptured. Eventually, though, he spoke up again. “Rabbit, can I ask you to do something for me?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Go find Iris,” he said. “She needs to see this.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is. The same three Regina Spektor songs on loop for two and a half hours later, it's here.  
> Feel free to tell me how horrified you were.  
> And is it just me, or are chapters like these really fucking difficult to title? Believe me, as a peruser of these kinds of incorrigible garbage, there are a number of poorly named birth chapters. Hopefully this isn't one of them.  
> It totally is.  
> I need to go to bed.


	28. Life Itself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me how you're feeling about this story, now that we've gotten through a nasty part.  
> Tell me.  
> Tell me how you feel.  
> Someone please speak to me. I'm so lonely.  
> If you're still reading this (I guess this counts you, too, Devin) then thanks a bunch for even bothering with me this long. And if the last chapter didn't frighten you away forever, thanks again. I wasn't sure how many people would be able to sit through that. I know my beta volatileSoloiste almost opted out of proofing that chapter for me. I'm glad she didn't, as violently terrible and terribly violent as it was.  
> Now that all that nastiness is over and done with, we can move on to the cute stupid fluffy shit.  
> Same outpouring of thanks to eveyone who let me drag them into this shitstorm of a story. Same outpouring of requests to tag all and any posts about this story with aforementioned tags and "sexpg" blacklisting so the band can avoid having to acknowledge this thing's existence. I think their lives are hard enough already without having to know about me taking everything they've worked to create and fucking it up beyond repair.  
> And now, trigger warnings.  
> CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNING: vivid description of post-surgery wounds and medical procedures, a fuckton of blood, close-call hypovolemic shock, mention of titty fluids and pissing off your friends.  
> I hope that's sufficient.  
> Enjoy. After the last chapter, you've earned it.

 

The first thing Iris saw upon returning from the city was Rabbit sprinting towards her and skidding to a graceless stop before the front door.

“Th-th-there you are!” she shrilled. “I-I’ve been waitin’ for f-for-for-forever for you to come back!”

Iris’s anxiety returned immediately, and she almost dropped the parcels she had clutched in her arms. “Did something happen?” she asked.

“W-well... yeah, sorta,” Rabbit replied. “I’ve been g-givin’ Peter excuses that I g-go-gotta keep The Spine an’ Jon away, and I d-don’t know if he believes ‘em anymore. You gotta come to the lab, r-ri... right now!”

“Wait. When did you go down to the lab?”

“D-doesn’t matter, you’ve gotta go to him!”

Iris saw no need for further questions. She hastily pushed her packages into Rabbit’s arms and told the automaton to put them in the kitchen, then took off running in the direction of the library. She threw the heavy oak door aside as if it were plywood and raced down the stairs, only slowing down when she nearly tripped and fell the rest of the way. “Peter?” she called when she reached the bottom landing. “Rabbit told me you needed me. What’s...”

She stopped, trailed off and never finished. Her words had died on the tip of her tongue when she finally saw him.

Peter was leaned back against the lab table where she had left him, lax and motionless, save for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. His head lolled onto one shoulder, eyes closed, a blissfully empty expression on his face. It took her a moment to notice exactly what had changed; his huge, swollen belly was gone. She almost hadn’t noticed underneath the haphazard mound of white rags that had been piled onto his chest.  _ Why are they there? _ she wondered, but had no time to think on it, because as it crossed her mind Peter raised his head. His eyes fluttered open and fixed on her. He smiled. “Iris,” he breathlessly said.

The sound of his voice made Iris’s heart stand still. It was cracked and gravelly, as if his throat were raw from use. In that moment, words seemed out of her reach. Nothing could express the way she was feeling. It was entirely beyond description.

“Come here,” Peter rasped, and Iris didn’t hesitate to do just that. She rushed to her employer’s side- her employer, her lover, whatever he even was to her at this point- and knelt down on the floor. Her gaze instantly fell on a tiny, pale face that peeked out from the edge of the bundle of fabric in Peter’s arms.

“Oh my...” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. At first, all she could do was stare, unable to take her eyes away, unwilling even to blink for fear that she might miss an important second. With a trembling, tentative hand, she reached towards the little face and delicately stroked her fingertip over its soft cheek. The newborn made a soft, confused noise, wriggled a little in its father’s arms, and a small, pudgy hand emerged from the blankets to wrap itself around Iris’s finger. Her breath hitched, and she felt a lump welling up in her throat. Her heart felt so full it threatened to break her chest.

“They’re both boys,” Peter said quietly. “Both sons. We have sons, Iris.” Iris wished she could respond, but when she opened her mouth nothing would come out. Speechless, she nodded, then sniffed and put her free hand to her lips to stop their quivering. It seemed like such an inopportune time to cry, but dear god, she wanted to. She didn’t think she had ever been so happy in her life.

Peter shifted the rags on the right side to reveal the other baby, this one fast asleep, his skin slightly darker than his brother’s and a light, downy coating of fuzz covering his head. Iris couldn’t take her hand from the one, so she steeled herself and lowered the one that held her emotions back to gently run its fingertips over the fine duck-fluff hair on her other sleeping son’s head. It was softer than cobweb silk, and when her hand ghosted over his small, chubby cheek, he woke up and cooed in confusion. With that, Iris couldn’t handle herself any longer. She sank down next to Peter, leaned against his shoulder and burst into tears. “Th-they’re... they’re so beautiful,” she choked out.

“Aren’t they?” Peter weakly agreed, his face still pulled into an exhausted smile. “They... they are worth... every second I spent.” He let out a long, shaky breath, and Iris felt his head sink down to rest against hers. It was only then she noticed how faint he was.

“Are you okay?” she asked through her tears. She couldn’t think of what else to say.

“I lived, and so did they,” he replied. “I’d say that’s the best that I could ask for.”

The pale infant finally let go of Iris’s hand, and she sat up to get a better look at Peter. The second her head was no longer stabilizing his, he let it drop to the side. She caught it and took his face in her hands, if only to keep him from straining his neck. “Peter, I’m not so sure,” she said. She waited for him to protest, but no response ever came. “Peter?” She whispered and ran her fingers through his hair, trying to get his attention. “Peter, are you listening?”

Still he said nothing. He could barely even look at her; his eyes were hazy and not even halfway open. Faint, shallow breaths brushed across her wrist, and his skin felt uncomfortably cold and damp against her palms. Panic began to set in, and she looked instinctively down at his torso, letting go of his head to instead examine the thick layers of rags that must have been serving as makeshift bandages. Carefully she peeled the first layer away. The fabric underneath was vivid blue, thoroughly soaked with Peter’s irradiated blood.

“Oh my god,” Iris murmured, her voice shrunken with fear. “Peter, how long has it been like this?”

“I... I don’t know.” She shouldn’t have bothered to ask. No answer from him would be any use when he was delirious from blood loss.

Johona had instructed her on what to do if this happened. They’d been over it a few times. So where were the instructions now that she really needed them? Scrambling to remember, she tried to ignore the quickly accelerating pulse of her heart as she took Peter’s head and shoulders into her arms. “P-Peter, I’m going to need you to lie down,” Iris stuttered. “Here... here, I’ll help you.”

Peter didn’t resist as Iris gently shifted him away from the lab table and laid him flat on the floor. He groaned a little when his body was sprawled out, probably tugging at whatever had leaked so much blood into the makeshift bandages. She let him keep the twins clutched to his chest, since they seemed to be giving him comfort. With him in at least a slightly safer position, Iris stood up and began rifling through the lab’s supplies, trying to find something, anything that would help him.

There was still about half of the bottle of rubbing alcohol left, which was reassuring. It didn’t take Iris long to come across what remained of the clean rags that Peter had stored in the lab. But that, she feared, would only be a short-term solution to the problem, not to mention one that had already proven itself ineffective. She searched frantically, but it seemed that Peter had no first aid kit at his disposal in the lab. Drawer after drawer, cabinet after cabinet proved to be full of nothing that she could use. Iris was losing hope even faster than Peter was losing blood. Then she came across the sewing box.

She couldn’t have begun to guess why Peter owned one, or why he would be keeping it in his lab of all places, but it wasn’t the time to ask questions. Thinking fast, Iris snatched up the whole box and rushed back to where she had left Peter. Thankfully he hadn’t changed in the few minutes she had taken to find the supplies.

Iris caught sight of the beaker of alcohol, now tinted blue with blood, left on the floor beside him where the crafting razor he’d used was sitting. The vessel was dumped out into the sink, rinsed, dried on Iris’s apron and filled a little ways from the bottom with part of the remaining alcohol. She picked a random needle and threaded it with a spool that looked like it might have been silk, then dropped it into the beaker of alcohol before turning her attention back to Peter. Reluctantly, she lifted the twins from his chest to get at the bandages. He whimpered in protest of their absence, but she reassured him that they would be fine. After setting their sons down close by, she peeled the rest of the bandages away.

A long gash spanned across Peter’s abdomen, oozing blood at a steady pace. Iris didn’t dare imagine how long it had been there. The cut had to be over half an inch deep, so much so that Iris could faintly see bubbles of fat and fibers of muscle behind the mess of congealing plasma. The sight of it made her stomach drop, but she did her best to stay collected. Moving as fast as she could, she doused the rag she’d found with the remaining alcohol and started blotting at the gaping laceration. Peter winced, and she hushed him. “You dealt with much worse not long ago,” she said. “I’m sure this will be nothing.”

The twins fell asleep on one another while she pulled apart the slapdash aggregation of rags that Peter had been using to cover up his wound, salvaging whatever rags were still clean and pressing them down on his stomach. Johona had told her that pressure could stop almost any amount of bleeding, or slow it at the very least. After a few minutes had passed, she switched out the pressure rag for the disinfecting one and cleaned the cut once more before taking up the needle and thread. 

Iris could see Peter’s discomfort plainly on his face as she started on his stitches. His breath hissed through his teeth every time the needle pierced into him, and sometimes he whined when the thread pulled a little too tight. He clung to Iris’s skirt through the whole procedure, and she let him, so long as it kept him still. 

Every now and then she had to dab at the open end of the wound to clear some of the blood away, but at least there wasn’t nearly as much. Eventually there was almost none at all, and Iris made quick work of putting in the last few of the stitches before finally pulling the whole wound closed. “There, it’s finished. No more needles,” she assured him while she patted the incision down with alcohol one last time. “How does it feel?”

“Not bad,” Peter mumbled. “S-still hurts a bit.”

“Of course it does. I’m afraid it will for a while. Jo should be home soon, though. When she is, she can give you another dose of morphine. We won’t have to conserve it so much from now on. I-I don’t think you’ll be needing it very much after this.”

“That’s... reassuring.” He sighed, and his hand rested against Iris’s thigh, searching blindly for her hand. She quickly took it and intertwined her fingers with his. 

“We’re still going to need to bandage you up, since stitches will sometimes leak. And we’ll do it properly this time, so you can actually heal.”

“Did I not do well enough?”

“From what I could tell, you were in shock from blood loss, so I’d wager you didn’t.”

Peter frowned. “How nice of you to say.”

Against all odds, Iris let herself laugh a little. “You held on long enough for me to find you. That has to mean something.”

Her employer sighed and pulled her hand close to his face to nuzzle against it, then placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles. She felt his eyelashes flutter against her skin, and for a second she suspected he might fall into unconsciousness right there and then. The peace was quickly broken by a shrill, sharp whine that emitted from the nearby pile of rags. One of the twins had started to cry, and it didn’t take long at all for the other to follow suit.

As if by some deeply ingrained reflex, Peter’s eyes snapped open and he strained to look in the direction of his squealing sons. “Oh dear,” he said. “I think they know they’ve been left.”

Iris immediately crawled to the twins and gathered them both up into her arms, rags and all. It was a struggle; Iris had never held a baby before, let alone two at once, but somehow she managed. Peter scooted back to lean against the lab table again and took the darker twin into his arms. Even with people close by, they continued to cry. Peter looked distressed by the whole situation. “I don’t understand. Why are they so upset?”

Iris observed the small, pale creature in her arms for a second before stating, “I anticipated that this would be a problem.”

“What would?”

“I think they might be hungry.” 

Peter’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but in another rare instance, Iris cut him short. “Don’t worry, though. I said I anticipated this. I will need to get you upstairs, though.”

“Right,” Peter said with a nod. “Okay. I can do that. I just need a minute to...” He shuffled back and tried to raise himself up off the floor, but his legs wobbled the second he put weight on them. Iris didn’t waste a second in pushing him back down. 

“Don’t. P-please, Peter, don’t make yourself walk,” she admonished him. “You’re still not stable.”

“You stitched me up, thought.”

“And it still hurts, doesn’t it?”

The engineer pursed his lips and sighed, and she rested her free hand on his shoulder. “I might have gotten the bleeding to stop but I can’t put back what you’ve already lost. It just isn’t safe.” She adjusted the baby in her arms from one elbow to the other and reached out to the one that Peter held to his chest. “I’ll have to take them upstairs. I’m going to need you, but you can’t move on your own. As soon as I find her, I’ll send Rabbit back here to bring you up.”

Peter seemed ready to protest, but he didn’t. He resignedly gave up the child in his arms, who hadn’t stopped crying so much as a second, and Iris carefully adjusted him to lay cradled in the bend of her elbow. Thankfully he didn’t squirm very much. His brother, on the other hand, was getting impatient.

“I’ll only be a moment,” she said before she stood up. Peter said nothing in response, only nodded. His eyes were fixated on her, overtaken with an anxious, earnest look. It was hard to turn away, but she had to. 

For what may have been the first time in her life, Iris felt that too many people needed her at once. She wasn’t intimidated, though. In truth, she found it comforting; more than anything else, it made her feel loved.

* * *

True to her word, Iris sent Rabbit to the lab within a minute of her disappearance. Peter recognized his creation’s fast, clanking footsteps as they clattered down the stairs. She promptly scampered into his field of view, fully equipped with her protective gloves and a heavy blanket draped over her shoulders, and at the sight of him, her face twitched into an exhilarated smile. “Iris t-to-told me she fixed you,” she said. “I-I was startin’ to worry. You said you’d... y-you... y-you-you’d heal, but I d-didn’t know if you were, because-c-cause you weren’t getting any b-better. And I-Iris knew you had to be fixed. I th-thou-thought you were broken, and I w-was right.”

“Certainly appears you were,” Peter mumbled in reply. 

Rabbit’s gears clicked as she laughed, and she sat herself down on the floor beside him, pulling the blanket around to cover the front of her body. She extended an arm from behind the blanket, revealing the sizable roll of gauze hanging from her wrist and the surgical tape stuck to her fingers in neat strips. With some assistance from Peter, the bandages were placed, folded up to cover the weeping incision and fixed with tape. After everything was covered, Rabbit handed the remaining supplies to Peter and reached her arms out to pick him up.

Peter still found it a bit surprising that his creation could lift him so easily. Granted, she was nearly as tall as he was, and she had been sturdily built, yet he still couldn’t get over the idea that he had created something so strong. He’d never intended for her to be so powerful, but there seemed little he could do to change her now. Besides, his brain wasn’t in the best condition to be mulling over such things. He barely had enough focus left to keep his eyes open.

He let go of that last little bit of autonomy as Rabbit eased her arms around his waist and legs. He let his neck go lax and dropped his head onto Rabbit’s shoulder, and his eyelids drifted shut almost instantly. He heard the faint click of the light switch turning off and felt the gentle sway of Rabbit’s gait while he listened to the steady mechanical clicking of her internal cogs. 

As vague as his awareness was, he recognized the crackle of wood smoldering in the stove. It was unmistakable to him, and when Rabbit accidentally let his feet bump into the side of a doorway, he knew for sure that he’d reached the kitchen. 

“Here he is,” Rabbit announced. “All b-b-ba-bandaged up, like you asked. He needs to ch-ch-change his clothes, though. He’s all s-soggy.”

“We’ll get around to that soon enough,” he heard Iris assuring his creation. “There are just a few things we need to tend to first. Could you set him down in that chair by the table?”

Peter felt Rabbit’s neck move when she nodded, and he finally raised his head to see his surroundings. There was, in fact, a chair pulled back from the table, which seemed to have been moved closer to the stove. A pot of water sat atop the grate, faint steam rising from its surface. Over the edge he could just barely see... were those glass bottles?

It took a minute for him to settle into his new position. Although he’d barely done anything himself, moving had left him with a bit of a headrush. His dizzy mind was at least coherent enough to understand the reason why Iris had told him not to move. Peter’s gaze roved over the room and finally found Iris, who was busy comforting one of the twins. She held the paler one, whose crying hadn’t stopped since Peter had last seen him, but had at least quieted down somewhat now that a warm, creamy smell was faintly wafting through the room. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, not quite awake enough to word the question more eloquently. 

“Something that I can’t believe I left off until now,” Iris replied. “Could you hold him for a moment? I need to use my hands.” Peter nodded, and she approached him, leaning down and gently lowering the squealing baby into his waiting arms. “I’m sorry to be handing him to you while he’s fussing,” she apologized as she returned to take the pot off the stove. “I think he just needs to know he’s getting attention.”

“Where’s his brother?” 

“Right here.” Iris set the pot down on the counter and turned to a large basket a few feet away, which emitted an excited cooing noise as a small, bluish arm reached up from it. Iris giggled and let the little hand grasp at her fingers before returning to her task. She lifted two bottles of white fluid out of the pot, dried them off and fitted rubber tops over them both. 

Peter stared, eyebrows raised. “Is... is that human milk?”

Iris glanced back at him and nodded, offering a quick “M-hm” before taking up one of the bottles and handing it to him. He only stared at it, as if he didn’t know what it was for.

“Where did you get this?”

“Now  _ that _ is a long and complicated story,” she said while she took the other bottle and lifted the quietly whimpering twin from his basket. “I’d been looking into feeding options for some time, since... well, for obvious reasons, I assumed you couldn’t give them anything yourself. I got the idea of getting a wet nurse, but it would have been unwise to include too many people in our plans. Besides, this would be a terribly difficult situation to explain.” She laughed nervously before holding the bottle in front of the infant in her arms and easing it to his lips.

The other twin, who had quieted down since Iris had handed the bottle to Peter, let out a sudden, piercing squeak, badly startling his father. Peter felt as if he’d almost forgotten he was holding him, and glanced warily at the bottle in his hand before shoving back his inhibitions and holding the end up to the baby’s mouth. He took it easily, though it didn’t ease the tension in Peter’s nerves. 

“I’ve been trying to figure out a way around it,” Iris went on. “Then, around a week ago, it occurred to me that... er, I’m sure this is going to sound strange when I say it, but technology has come a long way, and I found that there exists a device that milks people.”

Peter laughed. “Like cows?”

“Well, now it sounds derogatory, but that was the only solution I could work out.”

“Now I’m wondering who you convinced to let you use that on her.”

“You could probably guess that was where it got complicated. I had Miriam to thank for all her connections, though.”

That confused Peter, almost enough to worry him. “How did you explain to her that you needed a wet nurse?”

Iris didn’t respond, and that was just enough to push him over the edge. Peter’s mind wasn’t quite clear enough to start crafting scenarios, but the incoherent, anxious squabble in his head was a reaction enough. He wanted to say something, ask her again just to get rid of the anticipation, in spite of the fact that he didn’t even know where to begin asking. That was before Iris shakily declared, “I-I didn’t say anything about you. I can promise that much.”

Finally, he felt a little more at ease. He turned his gaze down to his son, who was blissfully quiet now, sucking avidly at the bottle. The sight of it was oddly comforting. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you told her,” he said. “You were far more clever than any of us were about all of this.” While he spoke, the baby’s suckling had slowed, and he wriggled himself into a new position, like he was trying to get comfortable. A faint smile materialized on Peter’s face. “Look at him. He’s really going at it.”

Iris giggled. “That’s one step ahead of this one. He seems like he’s barely even awake.”

“Really? I thought he was complaining just as much as his brother.”

“Maybe. It might have been because he was so loud, and that seemed like the right thing to do.” She made her way towards the table and pulled out a chair with her foot, setting herself next to Peter and letting him catch a glimpse of his other son. His behavior couldn’t have been more different from his brother’s; he moved little, and his mouth sucked lazily at the bottle, occasionally letting it slip and making his mother correct it. “It’s been said that twins are connected, you know,” she went on. “The whole theory is thought to be a big spiritual phenomenon that no one has ever really come to understand. It would certainly explain how he’s acting, though.” As she spoke, the baby let the bottle slip out of his mouth again, and milk dribbled out over his chin. Iris quickly took the bottle away and started dabbing at the stain with the edge of his rags. “I guess that’s the end of that,” she said.

A soft laugh bubbled in Peter’s chest, and he looked back down at his other son, whose energetic feeding was rapidly losing momentum. It didn’t take long before he was no longer keeping the bottle tip in his mouth. Peter took it back and set the vessel on the table, which was now half empty. His son had taken to squirming again. He was slowly inching up Peter’s arm, trying to right himself, probably not used to the feeling of a full stomach. Peter tried to help him, but at the first sign of attention, the infant melted again and let his father hold him in place instead. The engineer cuddled him close, resting his tiny head on his shoulder and idly stroking his thin blue hair with his thumb. “Lazy little rapscallion, aren’t you,” he joked.

His son made a short, undefinable noise, as if that were supposed to be some kind of response, making Iris laugh. “He doesn’t like you teasing him.”

Peter sighed, his cheeks already sore from smiling. “He can’t understand a word I’m saying,” he said, bowing his head toward his son’s. Then, in a moment of clarity, he once again realized exactly what it was that he’d just done, and his grasp of speech disappeared like an exhale of vapor.

“Is everything alright?” Iris asked. Peter looked up to see her face faintly creased with worry.

“Y-yes, everything’s fine,” he answered quickly. “It’s just... I can’t describe it. I... I can’t believe that I’ve... they’re just so...” He was speaking, but words still seemed to evade him. Everything he saw and everything he felt- Iris cradling one of their half-asleep sons in her arms, the other nestled against his neck, warm and living and so unbelievably small, the heavy beating of his own overloaded heart- all these things added up to it, but whatever it was, a name for it did not seem to exist. “It wasn’t like this with the automatons. It was similar, but it really isn’t the same thing at all. I remember Rabbit, when she first woke up, and how it all felt. It was something, but... it wasn’t this. W-what I’ve done... I don’t even know what to call it.”

“I think you’re talking about life, Peter,” Iris said. 

Her words, gentle as they were, woke him up from his reverie like a shock of cold. “What?”

“That’s what this is. You’ve created life.” She was smiling, and there was that same elated shimmer in her eyes that he could never tire of seeing. “It wasn’t crafted or engineered, it just  _ is _ . And it can be because of you.”

His brain stalled for half a second before his thoughts aligned again, and he glanced down at his son, who was now falling asleep in his arms. “It really is, isn’t it?” he mused in agreement. His nose brushed against the infant’s head and caught a sweet, unfamiliar smell. He placed a soft kiss in his thin, downy hair. “I can’t believe that I used to be so terrified of these two,” he murmured. “Only a few months ago I thought they would be the death of me.”

“They nearly were,” Iris warily added.

Peter sighed, leaning his head back against the chair. The stitches on his abdomen stung like a chemical burn. “You want to know something?”

“Shoot.”

“Even if they had been...” he elaborated, “even if I hadn’t made it, I don’t think that I would mind. Because, even if it was only for a little while, they reminded me what it was like to feel alive. I was more than willing to let go, but then they came in and forced me to hold on just a bit longer. They gave me a reason. And, because of them... I found you.”

Iris gazed at him, awestruck, her doe eyes soft and glassy. “But you’d already found me.”

“I don’t mean that they introduced me. Before any of this happened, I barely knew you. You were a maid I was too afraid to befriend, and I was the mad eccentric that you worked for. We were little more than strangers and if it weren’t for them, I may never have learned anything about you. I know it probably sounds silly to say that unborn babies can make people fall in love, but...”

“Peter, what I meant was that you’d  _ already found me _ .”

The room was quiet for a second, and the meaning of her words finally sank in. Peter smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Iris, exactly  _ how long _ did you have feelings for me before I knew anything about it?”

“Oh, god, I can’t even begin to guess...” She thought for a second. “The estimation changes so much. Sometimes I think it happened slowly, and that it built up a little more every time we spoke. And then, there are times when I think back to the first time I saw you... and I remembered you looked me in the face, and you introduced yourself like you might to anybody else, and you didn’t talk to me like a servant. You... you made me feel like a person.”

Surprise didn’t begin to cover what Peter was feeling, but it would have to do since he was too tired to come up with anything else. “It was just a formality, really. Any decent human would have done the same thing.”

Iris’s gaze fell away from his. “And you’ve never lived the sort of life that I have.”

Peter watched her for a moment, waiting for her to say something more, though he knew that nothing would come. “You’re right,” he eventually conceded. “After what you had been through... You know how soft I am. If it had happened to me, I would have done the same thing.”

“Maybe you did.”

Iris allowing him to touch her. Iris consoling him when he was upset. Iris agreeing to spend nights next to him in his room. Iris listening, remembering, observing and understanding him in ways that no one else had ever bothered to. She did have a point.

Before either of them could say another word, a familiar staccato of metallic noise came echoing down the hallway, and Rabbit burst into the doorway. “Johona’s just gotten back,” she announced. “Should I tell her about the-”

“Not yet,” Peter automatically answered. “Just stop her before she goes to the lab, and tell her to-”

“I can hear him, Rabbit. Would you mind telling me what in the blazes Peter is doing wandering around the house in his condition?”

A thick blanket of tense silence fell over the whole room while the sound of Johona’s approach traveled steadily towards them. Before any of them could react, she had appeared in the doorway where Rabbit had stood not a moment earlier. She must have sensed the stillness in the room, because when she entered, her pace slowed, then suddenly stopped. Her eyes landed on Peter. A second later, her face went slack, and there was a dull  _ thud _ as her hands did the same and her medical bag dropped unceremoniously to the floor.

For a moment, it seemed all she could do was stare. Peter heard only his nervous pulse rushing in his ears. Finally, her lips fluttered, and she took in a gasp of air. “What the hell?”

“Hello to you, too, Johona,” Peter replied, trying to sound flippant and failing miserably.

“W-whe...when did this happen?” she burst out, stuttering her speech almost as badly as Rabbit’s. “How... h-how did you... Oh, g-god, how could I have...” She broke into a run and dashed toward her friend, startling Iris out of her chair. “Tell me the truth right now, Peter. Are you hurt? Are you bleeding? Do you feel dizzy, lightheaded, or are you having any difficulty breathi-”

“I’m fine, Johona,” Peter assured her, cutting her short. “I’m alright. Everything is alright.”

“But... but you...” she went on stammering. “You were in and out of sleep, and you couldn’t have... I-Iris wouldn’t have... how did you even survive...” Suddenly she stopped. At long last, her eyes had fallen on the bundle of rags in her friend’s arms. “Th-that... that’s a baby.”

Peter nodded.

“That’s... oh, god. That’s  _ your _ baby.”

“One of them,” he said, once again smiling in spite of his sore face.

Johona understood completely. As if by instinct, she looked to Iris, then fixated on the bundle of rags cradled in her arms as well. With the speed and confidence of a sleepwalking old woman, Johona shakily stood up and moved towards the maid. She gazed at the tiny bluish creature nestled in the fabric for a moment, and Peter heard her breath catch in her throat. He watched as she whirled around to face him again, then leaned down close to his shoulder, her face caught between expressions of wonder and disbelief. “I... I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” she murmured.

Peter shifted his drowsy son in his arms, leaning a little ways toward Johona. “Would you like to touch him?” he asked.

His friend said nothing, only cautiously reached her hand toward the baby’s pale, downy head. With a feather-light touch, she stroked her fingertips over his hair, eventually growing bold enough to brush his pudgy cheek with the pad of her thumb. The baby startled a little, wriggled against Peter’s shoulder and let out a confused whine before going still again.

“Sweet mother of god,” Johona murmured. 

“They’re both boys,” Peter told her. “We haven’t chosen names yet, but like hell am I going to let you name either of them after me.”

“Just you try and stop me,” the nurse replied, though the words hardly sounded like she meant them. She let herself fall back into the vacant chair beside her, never once taking her eyes off her friend’s newborn son. “I have so many questions, but I don’t know if I can get them all in line. First of all... when?”

“Not long after you left. About an hour or two at most. It was before the morphine’s effects were supposed start waning.”

“Alright, then. Secondly... how?”

“That’s going to be a bit harder to explain.” Peter glanced at Iris and saw that guilt was written plainly on her face. He knew she didn’t like hiding things from people, even when she had to. This must have felt like a crime to her, and the severity hadn’t even started sinking in until now.

Johona’s baffled gaze went immediately to her. “Did you perform the procedure on him?” she demanded.

“N-no,” Iris nervously answered. “I’m not qualified like that. I-I could never have-”

“Oh, god. Peter, you didn’t do it yourself, did you?”

Peter felt his face flushing. “That was the intention, but... that wasn’t quite how it went.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well...” He sighed. If his hands were free, he would have run one through his hair. “I ran into some unexpected problems, and then... oh, Christ. Neither of you are going to believe me if I say it plainly.”

He noticed Iris’s grip tightening on the rags in her arms. “Peter, what happened?”

“I...” His mind groped for a way to explain it that made sense. “I really don’t know how to put it. It was... It could have been anything, really, but what happened... what I thought I saw was... Listen, this could have been anything, but if my memory is correct, I got some outside help.”

“What?” both women said at once.

It was exactly as he expected. Neither of them understood. “You don’t know the kind of things I’ve been seeing,” he said.

Slowly, Johona shook her head. “Of course I don’t. You hardly ever tell me when you have nightmares or hallucinate.”

“This couldn’t have been a hallucination. Or... or maybe it was. But if it had been, how the hell would Delilah have managed to cut me so deeply?”

The room felt cold all of a sudden. “You’re saying Delilah did this?” Iris asked.

“Yes. W-wait, no. I think she did?” he unsteadily replied. “I can’t really be sure of what I saw. I was already in such a state... it might have been real, or it might not have been. Whatever it was, all I know is what I remember seeing, and I’m not even certain what I can say about that much.”

The story ended up longer than he intended it to be. So much of it was hazy as it stood. He could practically hear the cogs turning in Johona’s head while he spoke, trying to find ways to write off what he’d seen- a dream he’d had while blacked out from pain, maybe a morphine-induced hallucination- while Iris simply stared and listened, absolutely spellbound. He was well aware he had no proof but what was falling asleep on his shoulder and what was cradled in Iris’s arms; that did nothing to change his memories. He knew what he’d seen. Or what he thought he’d seen, anyway. There was so thin a barrier between what was real and what wasn’t, he sometimes questioned whether one existed at all.

“I don’t understand,” Johona said when he’d finally stopped talking. “You say you lost track of the razor?”

“I dropped it after I started panicking and lost my nerve. Chances are I couldn’t have finished the procedure myself if I had tried.”

“Right,” his friend insincerely agreed, narrowing her eyes at him. “But if Delilah really is the one responsible- and that’s a big  _ if _ there- why would she appear right then? Why that specific moment?”

“I can’t be sure,” Peter responded. “Maybe it was because she knew I needed her.”

“Delilah was a chemist, though. She was never a surgeon.”

“Both of us know that she wasn’t content being only a chemist. She studied with you. She knew how to handle the instruments, and that was all she really needed.”

Hesitantly, Johona nodded. “Just like a vivisection.”

“What I don’t quite get is why she supposedly needed to turn the lights off,” Iris chimed in.

“Maybe she didn’t want me to see her right away.” He shrugged. “If I’m honest, I can’t explain that one either.”

“Well whatever you saw... if it really was her, or if it was something else entirely... we’re here now,” Johona definitively said. “That’s the bottom line. There’s no real reason to debate what’s in the past.”

Peter looked down at his son again. The baby had been still for quite a while, and now did little else but breathe, his small body expanding and contracting under Peter’s hand. His heart filled and fluttered, and he realized just how easy it could be to forget the past. “You have a point,” he sighed. 

“Apparitions aside, I’m still going to need to take a look at you.”

He turned briskly to his friend, suddenly taken aback. “What for?”

“I need to see if the incision was properly treated,” the nurse clarified. “You might have been able to get away with... well, whatever it was you did while I was gone, but I won’t have you bleeding out or going into septic shock on my watch.”

“Fine,” he conceded. With a slow, gentle hand he lifted his son away from his shoulder and up towards Iris’s waiting arm. He leaned back against the chair and went limp. Johona could do whatever she felt she had to. As far as he was concerned, he’d made enough medical decisions for the time being.

His friend leaned down and lifted the hem of his shirt, exposing the layers of bandage taped in place. She took her time peeling back the surgical tape, and the gauze was sticky as she pulled it away from his skin. His body looked just as damaged as it had ever been, his skin marred with indigo bruises and stretch marks, now feeling thin, empty and deflated. The stitches on the incision were holding tight to the edges of the wound that still wept some trace amounts of blood, but the stains left on the bandage were a mere shadow of what they had once been.

Johona’s eyes widened a bit at the sight of it. “Who put these in?”

“Iris did,” Peter replied, and he saw the maid flush a little as his friend whirled around to look at her.

“Where did you learn to sew like this?” she asked, seeming oddly excited.

“I-it’s... it’s a basic stitch, only the points are closer together,” Iris stammered. “I was just trying to be thorough, really.”

“Your handiwork is impressive regardless,” Johona remarked, bowing to observing the sutures a little more closely. “I’d wager these will hold just fine. Thank god I won’t have to replace anything.” With that, she stuck the bandage back in place and stood up. “I can’t imagine the day you two must have had.”

“You as well,” Peter tossed back. “You were gone nearly eight hours. I thought the doctor was supposed to have cut your hours. What in the blazes made you come back so late?”

“There were some complications and I had to assist in some emergency surgery, which definitely put a damper on my schedule.” She narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You could say that our days went rather similarly.”

Peter sighed in frustration and didn’t respond. It wasn’t worth the effort to argue. He knew Jo was angry with him, and she had every right to be. Besides, he was too tired to think of a witty response. Or to think at all.

“How long has it been since you last had any sleep?”

His friend’s question took him by surprise. He opened his mouth to answer and wound up yawning instead.

“Never mind, don’t answer that. I’m prescribing you bed rest, effective immediately.”

“Right now?” Peter blearily asked.

“Yes, right now. Not to mention some new clothes. You’re absolutely soaked in god-knows-what.” Johona leaned down to put a hand on his arm. “Are you able to stand?”

“I don’t really know, but I can t-”

“H-he can’t,” Iris cut in. Both Johona and Peter looked over at her, still a little surprised at her boldness, and she spoke again in the same gentle but firm tone. “Y-you shouldn’t is what I mean,” she rephrased. “You’ve been through a lot today, and I don’t know how much more you’ll be able to take. Th-that’s just what I think, though. If you want to, it’s up to you.”

It didn’t take long for Peter to reach his decision. “Hey, Rabbit?”

His creation, who had miraculously held still through the entire conversation, brightly responded. “Y-yeah, Peter?”

“You wouldn’t mind bringing me up to my room, would you?”

She smiled at him and squeezed the blanket draped over her arms. “Sure I w-wi-will!” The blanket tumbled open, hanging from her hands, and she pulled it back over her shoulders. “R-r-re-ready?”

Peter nodded, and the automaton bent down to scoop him up into her arms. Peter thought it was starting to get concerning, how often she had to carry him. He had to get around to walking places on his own. He would do it later, he decided, after he’d managed to get a decent amount of sleep. Yes, that was it, he thought to himself as he leaned his head on Rabbit’s shoulder. He just needed to sleep.

Rabbit started to move towards the door, but Peter stopped her. “Rabbit, could you stand me up for just a second? There’s just... something I need to do.”

The automaton was hesitant, but gradually she let her creator go and set him down on the floor. His legs still trembled at the notion of weight being put on them, and Rabbit kept her hands fixed firmly on his waist to hold him up, but at least he was free for a moment. “Iris, before I go, I just want to get one last look at them.”

The maid had no reply, only a heartfelt smile as she crossed the room to reach him. Peter looked down at the two small forms nestled in her arms. Both of them were asleep now, peaceful like a pair of drifting snowdrops. He felt his heart swell again as he studied them, the very things he himself had carried. Softly and silently, he leaned down to kiss first one on the forehead, then the other. “There,” he said once he was upright again. “Like you used to, only we can actually reach them now.”

Iris giggled. “You remembered something as silly as that?”

“Of course I did.” And the room went silent as he closed his eyes and pressed his lips over hers.

When he pulled back, Johona was gawking at them, her jaw hanging slack and her eyes looking like cue balls. Peter said nothing, only allowed Rabbit to lift him up again. She was startled, he could tell, and shuddered a little when she made her way out of the room, but he hardly minded. It would take a lot of talking to explain what she had just seen, but that was something that could wait until later. He was sure the question would stay with her long enough.

Neither of them said a word while they traveled upstairs. Thankfully the bedroom had been left open, and Rabbit walked in and laid her inventor down on top of the blankets. She ventured off to root through his closet for something comfortable to wear while he started peeling off his wet, bloodstained clothes. At long last, she spoke up again. “I-it hurt you a lot, d-did-didn’t it?”

“What did?” he drowsily replied as he crawled under the sheets.

“Bringin’ my brothers out here. I-if it broke you so badly that Iris had to f-f-fix you, it had to have hurt you a whole l-lo-lot.”

The warmth of the blankets began to seep into his exhausted body. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking of how sticky he still felt and how badly his stitches stung, but he was far too worn out to care. “It did,” he finally said. “It was worse than anything I’ve ever felt. But at the same time, it...” He trailed off. Did a word for what he meant even exist?

“What was it?” Rabbit asked, dropping his clothes at the foot of the bed. She gazed expectantly at him, waiting for her answer.

“I... It’s hard to explain. In a way you’d understand, anyway. It’s hard to put into simple words, but while everything was happening, it made me feel... alive.”

“And you are alive.” She patted his hair, giving him a satisfied smile.

Peter nodded, sinking further into the sheets. “I certainly am.”

Rabbit studied him for a moment, then backed away towards the door. She stopped at the threshold and leaned in, her eyes seeking out her creator one last time. “I hope you g-get lots of sle-ee-eep,” she said. “M-makin’ my b-bro-brothers must’ve took a lot of energy. You’ve gotta get it back so you can keep w-working and stay with us. O-k-kay?”

“Okay,” Peter murmured, and the door swung shut.

Johona appeared not much later, her syringe in hand. Peter stayed silent as she slipped another dose of morphine into his bloodstream. It pulled him under like ether, numbing his senses until all he could detect was a warm, formless haze. His vision defocused while he watched Johona leave the room. Sleep took over mere moments later, and he was happy to surrender.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this chapter listening to Love Like You and man, I never realized how perfect that song is.  
> Song choices aside, I hope this fluff was acceptable atonement.  
> See you next chapter.


	29. Hindsight, Foresight And The First Sight Of All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone please explain to me why i waited until 2:21 AM to start posting this chapter.  
> Does it even matter? For the amount of sense this goddamn story makes, I may as well have written the entire thing within a similar time frame. Which I basically did, now that I'm thinking about it.   
> So here I sit, listening to Ninja Sex Party, trying to convince myself that now is a good time to be doing this.  
> I don't know why I even bother to include so much personal information in these author notes. It isn't even like anyone reads them in the first place.   
> Moving on.  
> Thanks to Devin, cicada_s (for a while there), volatileSoloiste and everyone else who's even bothered to so much as glance at this drivel. Tags and blacklisting. I think we're covered here.  
> And finally, a chapter where there's nothing I need to warn anything about. I don't think so, anyway.  
> I hope not.

 

“My god, they’re... they’re so tiny.”

Johona stared at the pale, drowsy infant in her arms. He was freshly bathed, dressed in a proper diaper and blankets, his little feet cozied into a pair of hand-knitted mint green socks. Johona had tended to the twins herself as soon as she had seen to it that Peter was medicated and asleep. Iris had been happy to assist, while they sent Rabbit to find The Spine and The Jon and delicately ease them into the knowledge that there were two more people now residing with them in the manor. The nurse wasn’t entirely sure that the automaton was capable of doing  _ anything _ delicately, but Iris seemed to have enough faith in her, and thus far she hadn’t done much to prove her otherwise. 

Both of them were in the parlor now, sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace with Kepler between them. The flames were stoked, filling the room with a warm glow, and for the first time, Johona was able to truly get a grasp of the small, mysterious creature she was holding in her arms. She’d been holding him the whole time she was going through the usual motions, of course, but this was different. After the brief and professional once-over, she was finally allowed to really _ look _ at him. What she saw left her spellbound.

“Dare I say, this one looks exactly like Peter,” she mused, tracing her fingertip across the baby’s cheek. “Though it might just be the blue hair that really does it.”

“They were exposed to the radiation just as much as he was,” Iris pointed out. She stood by the fire a small distance away, trying once again to feed the other twin, who was falling asleep as she attempted to coax a bottle to his mouth. 

Johona glanced up at her. “Is he still being difficult?”

She shrugged in response. “I’d say they’re both difficult in their own way. All babies are, really. You remember how much that one cried when you took him out of the rags.”

Johona did, in fact, remember. The volume and pitch that his tiny lungs were able to reach was truly astounding. The noise had, in turn, upset his brother and caused him to cry as well, which had made the entire process that much more difficult. They had calmed down once exposed to the warm, wet towels that Johona used to clean them, and Iris had been an excellent assistant.

The infant in Johona’s arms surfaced a little from his partial sleep to make a soft, subdued noise and wriggle one of his small, doughy hands free of the blanket to grasp the nurse’s thumb. She gasped softly, then giggled, absolutely enthralled by something so simple. “He’s a grabby one, isn’t he?” she remarked, then turned to Iris again. “And speaking of grabby, what was the meaning of that altercation between you and Peter that you quite unabashedly displayed in the kitchen?”

“What alterca...” Iris started to say, but her words quickly faded. If it weren’t for the fire casting the room in its glow, there might have been a visible redness blooming in her cheeks. “Oh. That.”

A wicked grin spread across Johona’s face. “Tell me everything.”

Iris was hesitant. To be expected, Johona figured; it wasn’t as if she’d expected the whole affair to be revealed so unceremoniously. “I... um...” she stammered, her attention now fully distracted from the baby in her arms. “That was... Oh, god. How do I explain this? Er... Peter and I, we... sort of...”

“If you’re in love, you can go on and tell me,” Johona cut in. “I won’t be surprised.”

“Y-you...” Iris started, but her son let out a protesting whine and she realized he’d let his bottle slip again. She quickly set it down on the coffee table and took to cleaning his face. “How long have you known something was going on?” she nervously asked.

“Ages,” was the simple answer. “Since I first got to know you, probably.”

Iris seemed shocked. “Really?”

“The way you acted, I suspected  _ something _ was out of the ordinary, and it was either you were in love with Peter or you were after his life. You can guess why I’d choose to believe the first option.”

“I really thought that I’d been more subtle than that.”

“Oh, you were. Peter didn’t notice a damned thing until I pointed it out.”

Iris’s grip on the blankets tightened. “Y-you didn’t tell him that I-”

“Oh, god no. I would never be so direct with him. He’s an intelligent man, just... not always the most adept in these situations.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Hardly anything, really. Just implied a few things maybe once or twice, at least until he finally caught on. He’d started to respond to you, and he wasn’t even aware of it himself. He just needed a bit of help to move things along.”

“So that was why...” Iris murmured. Her eyes widened. “Was that really it? Because you told him he did, he said...”

“What  _ did _ he say, exactly?”

“He...” She chewed at her lip instead of responding, avoiding Johona’s gaze. Her eyes flicked down to the dozing infant in her arms, and Johona watched as she absently stroked his face with a fingertip. Intermittently her lips parted, and she breathed as though she were about to speak, but no words ever escaped her.

“There’s no real pressure, Iris. I’m only curio-”

“He said he loves me, and I have no idea what that means.”

The confession had come out so fast that Johona almost laughed. “I’d think it would be fairly obvious what he means.”

“No, I understand... I  _ think _ I understand the meaning behind his words, but I’m so unsure.” At long last, Iris turned to Johona, a bewildered look in her eyes. “What does this make us?” she asked.

She offered the maid a smile, trying to be encouraging. “You probably could be together if you both want to,” she said.

Iris scoffed. “He might be kind, but he isn’t stupid.”

“He also isn’t the sort of person who says things just to manipulate the people he cares about.”

The maid opened her mouth to respond, but a proper reply didn’t seem to exist. Instead of speaking, she went back to biting feverishly at her lip. She lifted her son up to her shoulder and nuzzled her face into his blanket. Her eyes were closed, and though Johona considered herself an imaginative person, she couldn’t picture what images must have been flashing in Iris’s vision.

“Besides, you have children between you now,” she went on, if only to end the silence. “It would be the only honorable thing to do, especially the way you explained it to Miriam.”

Iris still said nothing.

“He’s already picked up a habit of saying  _ our _ twins whenever he talks about the babies. He stopped wanting to be rid of them a long time ago.” When the quiet stretched onward. “He wants to raise them with you, Iris.”

Finally she looked up and said in a deeply wistful voice, “I know.”

Metal clanked in the hallway, and the conversation came to a screeching halt as an automaton spilled into the room, followed quickly by two more. The Spine stopped short, almost causing The Jon to crash into him, leaving it to Rabbit to grab her little brother and keep him from toppling over. 

“Rabbit said there were more humans,” he blurted out, his eyes wide and excited.

With The Jon finally steady on his feet, Rabbit let him go and stepped up beside her other sibling. “I d-didn’t know when you’d want me to t-te-tell’em,” she quickly confessed. “I-I tried to do it slow, l-li-like you told me, b-b-but when I said there were n-new humans they got all ex-excit-ited, an’ I couldn’t stop them.”

“But there  _ are _ new humans here, right? Right? Can we see them? Please please please, I really wanna see them!” The Jon pleaded, only to be sharply hushed by Johona. He quickly covered his mouth and shrank back behind his sister.

“You can see them, but you need to be quiet,” she explained. “They’re very sleepy, and they can get upset when they’re startled.”

Both automatons vehemently nodded. “So... where are they?” The Spine asked, keeping his voice low. “I don’t see anyone in here.”

“They’re right here,” Johona said with a furtive smile before adding, “Well, here’s one of them, anyway. Iris has the other one.” She stood up from the couch, taking care to keep her arms level, and approached the automatons. “I’m going to have to ask you to stay still for the moment,” she warned them.

The Spine and The Jon immediately crowded around her, leaning over her shoulders to see the pale little face that peeked out from the blankets. She heard The Spine sigh and steam hiss from his vents while The Jon remained completely silent, having taken too readily to Johona’s warnings. Softly, the silver automaton asked, “Why is he so small?”

“Because he’s new,” she explained. “He was just born today.”

“Are all humans this little when they’re new?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“W-where did they come from?”

“Er... that’s something that would take a lot of time to explain. I think Peter might do a better job of explaining it than I would.”

“Where is he? I haven’t seen him in a long time. Maybe I could ask.”

“He’s asleep for now. He’s had a rather exhausting day today.”

“Oh,” was The Spine’s simple reply. He stared in silence at the baby for a moment longer. “He looks squishy.”

“He is.”

“Is that also the way new humans are?”

Johona nodded. “When humans are first born, they’re small, and soft, and they don’t know how to do very much.”

“But I thought humans knew everything. You and Iris know a lot. So does Peter.”

“Well, it took us a long time to get that way.”

She sensed The Jon straying from her side to Iris’s, taking to peering over her shoulder at the other twin. The Spine stayed, his eyes fixed and unblinking, still wide with awe. She felt him shiver as he let slip another sigh of steam. At last he spoke up, his words a trembling whisper. “I want to touch him.”

“You can, if you want to.”

“I’m afraid of hurting him.”

“Just be gentle,” Johona instructed him. “Here’s an idea; test it on me first. I’ll let you know if you’re being gentle enough.” The Spine hesitated for a second, then brought his hand up to brush it over Johona’s cheek. “That’s perfect,” she assured him.

With the affirmation, The Spine carefully lowered hand into the blanket and traced the tips of his long, spindly fingers across his newborn brother’s skin. The baby squealed, making The Spine quickly pull his hand back, looking almost frightened by the sound. “D-did I do something wrong? Did I hurt him?”

“No, he’s fine,” she assured the automaton. She adjusted her hold on the infant, who was now burrowing himself deeper into the blanket. “Your hands are just cold.”

In all the time that their exchange took, The Jon had been hovering close to Iris and carefully studying the other twin. “This one looks different,” he remarked. 

“That’s the way humans generally are.”

“Hm.” The Jon hummed his acknowledgment as he went on studying.

The Spine looked up from the bundle in Jo’s arms and glanced back at his brother. “How different?”

“A lot different. He’s darker, and he’s got more hair.” He paused, and Johona heard his gears whirring while he thought. “He looks kinda like you, Iris.”

Johona stood bolt upright at the sound of his words. Across the room, she saw clearly on the maid’s face that she was very much taken aback. “How so?” she asked, trying to sound calm.

“It’s the hair,” The Jon elaborated. “It’s kind of hard to tell, ‘cause he hasn’t got a lot of it, but he’s got more than his brother. His is all fluffy, just like yours.”

Iris couldn’t say very much other than a soft, awestruck “Oh.” She traced her fingertips over the top of the baby’s head, which was in fact just as fluffy as The Jon claimed it was. Slowly she made her way over to the couch and sank down onto the cushions, the expression of shock never leaving her face.

* * *

Iris was only awake for a few more hours. Johona wouldn’t let her stay awake much longer than that. It was for the same reason as the mandatory bed rest that she had imposed upon Peter: almost an entire day had gone by since either of them had gotten any sleep. Iris was never the kind to argue, especially not when she knew she was going against plain, indisputable logic. Still, she vied to strike some kind of a deal with Johona. 

It was agreed that Iris could stay awake until the twins’ next feeding, and once it was over, she would go off and get some sleep. She managed to win Johona over on the advice she’d taken from the wet nurse she had bought their milk from; feeding a baby is one of the most natural ways to form a bond with them. She was already inextricably bound, as far as she and her astronomical love for the twins was concerned, but as with most things, mutuality was a necessity. 

The automatons took quickly to the newborn twins. Within minutes of their introduction, both The Spine and The Jon were avidly asking questions, wanting to be as involved as possible and know everything there was to know. The Spine was even bold enough to ask if he could hold one of them. Johona had been reasonably reluctant, but with some careful instruction from Iris, he managed to make his arms into a proper cradle for one of the twins. Of course, the small creature sensed the separation from his mother and instantly began to cry, throwing poor Spine into a panic. That might have been the reason why Rabbit kept herself at a slight distance afterward and why The Jon was content to hold Kepler instead.

She still couldn’t forget what the golden automaton had said about the darker twin. Did he really look like her as much as The Jon seemed to think he did? No one else had pointed it out. Granted, she hadn’t taken a decent look in a mirror in quite some time. Peter had been out of his head from insomnia and shock, and surely Johona had better things to be concerned about than which of them the twins did or didn’t look like.

It stood to reason that they would look at least something like Peter. But the way biology worked, they should have looked like Ernest, not like Iris. There was no physiological way that any of her genes would have been factored in. The only way it made sense would have been if the stranger he’d been with were black as well, but the way Peter described him, it didn’t sound like he was.

She was sure the question would keep her up that night, but that didn’t stop Johona from instructing her to go up to bed as soon as the twins had been fed again.

The nurse assured Iris that she had worked in maternity wards before, and she knew rather well how to handle babies. If the twins got hungry again, there was enough milk in the icebox to last them another day or two, and if she needed an extra set of hands, the automatons were all ready and eager to help at a moment’s notice. 

When Iris crept into Peter’s bedroom and held up the candle she’d used to navigate the dark hallway, she found him fast asleep, curled up under the covers, his head buried in the pillows and his chest slowly rising and falling with a deep, steady rhythm. She stood in the doorway for a while, simply watching him. There was an intrinsic beauty about him, she thought. It made the dimly lit room feel safe and serene. As exhausted and drawn as he surely was, he seemed more at peace than he had been in a long time. 

She went to the closet and changed into a sleeping shift in the low, flickering light. Though she bumped into a few things, Peter never awoke at the noise. He must have been deeply drained by his ordeal. Iris could barely imagine.  _ Thank god _ , she thought to herself as she approached the bed.

He didn’t stir as she crawled under the covers and settled herself beside him. He was stripped to the waist, she realized, wearing only a pair of loose cotton pants, and she didn’t blame him. He was probably relieved to finally be rid of his sticky, blood-drenched clothes. Besides, it wasn’t as if it bothered her. She’d already seen under his skin that day.

Even with Peter in as comatose a state as he was, Iris was hesitant to get close to him. Perhaps that was the reason in itself; he always fell asleep close to her of his own accord, but without his conscious thoughts on the matter, she just couldn’t be sure of anything. In that moment, though, she wanted nothing more than to hold him. He’d been through so much, and she had missed out on the most important part of it.

A pang of guilt struck Iris’s heart. She wished that she had been there. Certainly, the end result was perfectly fine- the delivery was a success, the twins were healthy and Peter himself had survived- but at the same time, it very nearly wasn’t. 

She’d done all she could, though; Rabbit had assured her of that. Even more important was the fact that she had taken up the tasks that Peter himself hadn’t been able to do.

The thought only served to stir up more guilt. Again, there was the concept of ends justifying means, but Machiavellian logic did nothing for her. The three of them had been running with fabrications for months, and it seemed to have become second nature for her to come up with falsehoods in times of stress. It wasn’t as if lying had been a snap decision, though. Second nature was no excuse.

She wondered how she would explain it to him. If she was lucky, he would understand. She’d only done it to keep his secret safe, after all. She couldn’t very well have gone to Miriam and told her the truth. No one would have believed a word she said, and the niece of her manager’s from whom she’d gotten the milk would have never even been a part of the picture. 

Her medical knowledge, sparse as it was, had been enough to give her some solid footing. As for the rest... well, very few people knew what she had really lost in her accident. Peter might take some offense to some of the insinuations she’d made, and she hoped he would understand. Biologically, her story wouldn’t have otherwise worked. She only hoped that her words didn’t make the staff see him differently. It wasn’t as if she had soiled her own reputation; she’d barely had one in the first place.

It had only made sense at the time to tell Miriam that she was the one who had given birth to the twins.

* * *

The whole world was soft and dark, and Peter heard them whispering to him.

“We see you’ve done something remarkable.”

“Have I?” he replied.

“Of course you have. We are always aware of your circumstances, even when the blue matter wasn’t.”

Peter exhaled and drifted gently downward. He felt like a swimming jellyfish, or like a fallen leaf on the autumn wind. He couldn’t tell if it was warm or cool, but the air wasn’t altogether bad. “I don’t expect to be congratulated or anything,” he said.

“That’s your custom, though, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then let me extend mine to you.” They paused, and the current rushed in Peter’s ears for a moment before they spoke again. “It isn’t just your sons I’m alluding to.”

“Then tell me what you  _ are _ ,” Peter requested, but an answer never came.

The white noise around him crackled like radio static, and he let the current roll him around as he waited. Finally, words filled the empty space. “You mean... you really don’t know what you’ve accomplished?”

“I have children,” he uncertainly murmured. “I’ve made machines... I think they’re living things, even though I never meant them to be...” His arms reached out and tentacles brushed against his palms. They slithered around his wrists, catching him mid-float.

“There’s more to it than that,” they told him.

“What more?” he asked as the tentacles steadied him. “I discovered the blue matter. I feel like I should know all of this.”

“Don’t worry.” The tentacles pulled him down and cradled him loosely in their grasp. “You won’t be confused for long.”

Peter was silent for a few eternities. Time lost its meaning, and at long last, at long last the question occurred to him, the one he should have asked before anything else. 

“Who are you?”

“We will tell you everything that you need to know soon enough.”

* * *

Peter awoke suddenly. His eyelids flew open and he took in a sharp breath. Had he stopped breathing? Had he been breathing at all while he was asleep?

He had no idea. He couldn’t remember. All he recalled was that place, gentle and dark and endless and strangely comforting.

It was hardly different from where he was now. The weak grey light of the barely-risen sun seeped through the curtains over the windows. Most of the room was still steeped in dimness. There was a body next to him, its supple weight pressed against his back, breath ghosting across his neck, its arm was draped across his waist.  _ Iris _ , he realized. He could smell the warm-kitchen-parchment-paper scent of her hair.

He lay there for a short time, feeling too lethargic to do anything but listen to her breathing. Everything about him felt lax and heavy. He was awake, but it didn’t seem like his body and mind were in agreement. It took forever for feeling to return to his limbs. When it did, he rolled over to face her, wound his arms around her and nestled her close, pressing his nose to her hairline before closing his eyes again. 

Iris stirred, and she shifted her arms to hold him a little tighter, but said nothing. The movement was pointed enough that he knew she was awake. They didn’t need to be, though. Not entirely.

Everything was still and peaceful. Their legs tangled together, Iris’s feet running lazily over Peter’s calves. His fingers toyed absently with her curls. For a while he wasn’t sure whether he was awake or asleep. He was faintly aware of the light outside the curtains strengthening, though, and eventually he would have to give in.

“Iris?” he whispered, his lips barely parting to form her name.

“Mhmm.” Her reply was only a mumble and a tender nuzzle of her forehead against his chest.

Peter sighed. A few solid seconds went to nothing but breathing. Whatever sentences he could string together seemed meaningless. He felt a faint sting striking across his otherwise numb torso. “How long has it been?” he asked.

“Not sure,” she replied. He felt her eyelashes flutter as her eyes opened. “Maybe... fourteen hours?”

“Fourteen? Christ.” He felt surprised, but he didn’t seem to have the capacity to inject such emotion into his words. 

“You went through a lot yesterday,” Iris said, running her hands over his back. 

“I did,” he conceded. The renewed bite of the stitches in his abdomen were enough of a reminder. 

“And neither of us had slept at all.”

“I remember.”

Iris tilted her head to leave a trail of kisses across Peter’s clavicle, drawing an ecstatic sigh from his lips. “I couldn’t begin to tell you how glad I am that you’re still here.”

“For once, I had a reason to survive,” he said, his voice overcoming the pulse of his fluttering heart.

There was a moment where neither of them spoke. The only sound was Iris’s lips on his shoulders and neck, the rush of Peter’s breath and his heartbeat ringing in his ears. He rolled over onto his back and Iris straddled him, tangling her fingers into his hair, moving her mouth rhythmically against his. Peter felt heat pooling in his core as Iris’s body rocked against him. His stitches burned, but he barely felt it when Iris’s warm, affectionate touch was overriding his senses. The world was drowned out, and all he knew was her.

Then, in the distance, a shrill cry sounded out. The noise cut easily through the haze that surrounded them.

All of a sudden, Iris was sitting up, her head turned towards the door. She listened for a second, and as the noise reached Peter as well, she looked back to him. “Sounds like the twins are awake,” she said.

Peter’s blushing skin quickly cooled down as Iris climbed off of him, and his nerves began to buzz with a different sort of excitement. He hadn’t seen his sons since yesterday, after he’d only had them for a few short hours. Right then, he wanted little else but to see them again.

Reality set in once again, as it had been wont to drift back and forth in the past few days. He had sons, ones that he had carried and birthed himself. It still didn’t quite feel real. He half expected to wake up at any moment, for everything to be revoked and for his life to be set back on the course it had been before... whatever the past few months had been. As Iris took him by the hand to help him out of bed, he found himself gripping her more tightly than he needed to. He focused all his attention to his skin while he pulled on the shirt that he’d left sprawled on the covers, feeling the fabric slide over his body. It was all there. This had to be the life he was living now. Hadn’t it?

He chased after Iris, and she led him to the room down the hallway where Johona was no longer staying, where they’d spent Christmas putting the cribs together and spilling pastries on the floor. The crying reached a new pitch when Iris opened the door, and by some deeply-driven instinct, Peter was impelled to rush past her and towards the closest crib.

The smaller twin with curly hair was there, barely awake and just beginning to cry. It was his brother who has started the fit between them. Peter glanced over his shoulder at the wailing baby in the other crib, then turned to Iris. 

“I’ll start warming their bottles up and bring them in,” she said. “I don’t think we should be moving them when they’re like this.”

“Good idea,” he replied. “I’ll try to calm them down in the meantime.”

With an affirmative nod, she rushed out of the room. Peter lifted his more irate son out of his crib, and the baby’s cries began to soften a bit. He still whined and grabbed blindly at his father’s shirt, but at the very least his shrieking had stopped. Peter bounced the one infant on his shoulder while he turned his attention to the other. He still seemed half asleep, barely aware of himself or the fact that his brother wasn’t crying so loudly anymore. The engineer scooped him up with a single hand before balancing him on his free shoulder.  _ Good god, I still can’t believe how tiny they are _ , he thought to himself.

Several minutes of stalling went by before Iris finally returned. At one point Rabbit wandered in to ask what all the noise was about. Peter easily caved and tried to explain, though it wasn’t much longer before Iris was in the room once again, bottles in hand. “I managed to bring the pot to a boil pretty quickly, but it took quite a while for the milk to be warm enough for them.”

“I didn’t know they needed it at such a specific temperature.”

“Well, the way Jo explained it, it’s all got something to do with their nervous systems being hypersensitive, and their not wanting anything to do with whatever isn’t close to human body temperature, or something along those lines.” She set the bottles down on a nightstand and lifted the darker twin from Peter’s arm. The infant squealed, and Iris gently shushed him. “I know, I know. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Tell him that he can either eat quickly, or the way he wants to,” Peter offered.

Iris rolled her eyes. “I don’t think arguing with an infant is going to help.” Even behind her tone, he could tell she was trying not to laugh.

The babies were absolutely silent as soon as the smell of warm milk reached them, and the quieter twin was taking to feeding much easier than he had the evening before, according to what Iris had told him. The one he held was just as hungry as ever, despite still being partially asleep. Eventually he started letting the bottle slip out of his mouth, and Peter set it aside to clean up what had spilled over. As he dabbed at the infant’s face with a cloth, the creature made a faint, indescribable sound and, most unexpectedly, his eyes began to twitch open.

Peter’s heart stuttered. “Iris!” he cried out. “Come here. You have to see this!”

She rushed over to him and was at his side in a second. “What is it?” she asked, but it didn’t take long at all for her to see. She gasped softly and leaned her head onto Peter’s shoulder to take a look. Rabbit snuck her way in as well, leaning over the both of them. 

Peter tried sheltering his son’s face with his hand, but it didn’t do very much to expedite things. It seemed almost as though he were giving up when, with a last concerted effort, the baby’s eyelids fluttered open and he fixed his gaze on the first thing he saw. 

That very thing, as it happened, was Peter. 

The baby’s eyes focused on him, and the sight of them slammed into Peter like a brick wall. He very nearly dropped his son out of shock. A cold, crawling shiver slid down his spine. It couldn’t be. 

“Peter?” Iris softly asked. “Is something wrong?”

He couldn’t answer her. His breath was stuck in his throat, his lungs too leaden to work. He felt what little color he had in his face drain away. All around him the world seemed to darken, further and further until his son’s pale little face was all he could see, his face and the wide, foggy blue eyes that wandered avidly, taking in everything they could. An unexplainable force pierced directly into Peter’s soul, reaching him in a deep, unknowable way. He recognized the curiosity, the bright wonderment in the infant’s gaze. 

Those eyes. That foggy blue color. He’d seen it before, memorized it even, the last time that he saw his dear friend while she was still alive.

“I-impossible,” he choked.

He felt Iris’s hand on his arm as she tried to steady him. He finally drew a breath, and found it was shaking when he let it back out. “What is?” his maid asked him. She was gentle, but he could hear the fear in her voice.

“He...” Peter’s voice was thick, his throat so tight that it pained him to force the words out. “He has Delilah’s eyes.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for everyone to posit theories now.  
> Or not. No one has done it before.  
> See you next chapter.


	30. Names And Lies Out Of Poetry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm determined to finish this story before I go back to chool for the year, and that's what I'm damn well going to do.  
> Nothing to report here. Only that I may or may not have internet access for the next week, so more than likely it's now or never in terms of getting this all posted. I want it to be done soon. This is the way I plan on actually doing that.  
> I really shouldn't be stalling. I have to wake up tomorrow.  
> Same thanks to my betas and whoever bothers to waste their time reading this blindingly absurd smattering of letters that I stamped into existence with my keyboard and computer screen.   
> Thanks.  
> Same tumblr plugs that no one will use(fic: alaout, fic: artificial life and other unnatural things, fic: artificial life, sexpg)  
> Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

 

Johona came home early, due to circumstances that weren’t exactly beyond her control. It was her own strategizing that had led her to that point. She was the one who had requested for her hours to be cut. Maybe she would be able to go back to her original schedule after she gave the news to her employer that at long last, her friend’s fever had broken and his condition seemed to be taking a turn for the better.

It wasn’t that Iris wished she were out of the house more often. In fact, they all might be a little better off with an extra set of hands at the manor. If that were the case all the time, maybe she and Peter might be able to have some alone time without being interrupted. 

That  _ was _ something they could do now, wasn’t it? Since their stances were both clarified.

An undetermined number of years had passed since the last time Iris had been in love. Not lusting after some attractive stranger in the streets, consenting for a liquored-up blind date to shell her out of her clothes  or pining over an unreachable vision and letting her own hands do all the work. A relationship, she supposed was the proper term for it. It had been ages since the last one she’d had that was worth mentioning.

The thought made Iris wonder what her life would be like from that point on. In her long-abandoned ideas of the future, she had thought that the process would have gone a little slower; she would meet a man, they would form a connection or bond of some sort, eventually find a home of their own, marry and have children, making for a fine series of letters for her to send home to her parents in Chicago. She wondered what they might make of the situation she was in now. It was an unconventional way of making a life, to be sure; she had gotten something similar to what she had always wanted, although not in the order she had been expecting and definitely not the manner she had once planned.

She hadn’t sent word to her parents in quite some time, she realized, not since the passing weeks before Peter had invited her into his home. They had responded to her letter then, of course. They always did. She had never sent them anything in return. What would she have said? Nothing they would have understood, surely.

The thought left her wondering what she would tell them in her next letter. She had to send one, of course. It was highly unusual of her to have waited this long between correspondences, and they must have been worried sick about her. 

She could feed them the same story she had given to Miriam: in secret, she and Mr. Walter had become romantically involved, and in the middle of their reveries he had fallen mysteriously ill. She had taken up the responsibility of caring for him personally, and soon after found herself pregnant with his twins, who were born prematurely soon after their father had regained his health. That would make at least some sense, wouldn’t it?

But Miriam didn’t know about her missing pieces like her parents did. She had told them everything she could about the trolley accident as soon as she had been freed from the hospital. They had come to visit her before she sold her apartment, both of them had held her while she’d cried over the loss of what she didn’t yet have. Her mother had even seen the scars with her own eyes. Hospitals mixed up patient files all the time, didn’t they? She’d thought she had no means of bearing a child, so she hadn’t worried, and by the time she found out she was wrong, the organs she didn’t know she still had were already serving their purpose. 

_ Yes, that might make sense to them _ , she thought to herself when she heard the front door swing open.

Johona caught her eyes just as Iris made her way down the stairs. “I take it from that stupid smile on your face that all hell hasn’t broken loose?” she said with a smirk.

Iris shook her head. “It’s been relatively peaceful, really, other than the automatons asking questions every waking moment. It’s been a small bother, really. And I was able to get a few things done once I fashioned this thing.” She tugged at the strap of the sling around her shoulder, which she had fashioned from a scarf and now held one of the twins close to her chest. 

Johona advanced a little to take a look at the light blue infant. He was curled up and dozing, as he had been almost unwaveringly since birth, and she smiled warmly. “I take it he likes being wrapped up in that thing?”

“It’s what my mother used to do with me when I was his size,” Iris replied with a shrug. “He stays warm that way, and he can probably hear my pulse where he’s sitting. It probably reminds him of being inside Peter.”

“How is our resident Pappy anyway?”

Iris laughed a little at the new moniker. Johona had been inventing them behind her friend’s back pretty frequently. “Perfectly fine, last I saw. Still weary from yesterday, but I can imagine that’s normal.”

“Out of everything that’s happened in this house, that’s one thing that actually is,” Johona remarked. “Would you mind searching him out for me and bringing him to his study? We’ve got a lot of discussing to do.”

Her tone of voice was slightly concerning. “About what?”

“A number of things. First of all, there are now two more people living in the state of California that the government knows nothing about, and second of all, we don’t even know what to call them.”

Iris’s eyebrows rose, and she nodded in understanding. “I’ll get Peter right away. Will the automatons need to be present too?”

“Maybe. I’ll take care of them myself. You just go and find your husband.”

“I’ll see you in the study, then.” Iris turned to leave, but after moving half a step forward froze and spun back around. “Wait, what did you just call him?”

“You heard what I said.” Johona didn’t look back as she traipsed out of the room and disappeared around a corner.

Iris sighed in aggravation, though no one was around to hear her. She started toward the parlor, since she was sure Peter wasn’t on the second floor, having just come from that part of the house herself. The room was empty, as were the next few she checked. At last the library came to mind, and she raced off in that direction, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. Her son squeaked in discomfort as he bounced against her chest, forcing her to slow her pace down for his sake.

She found Peter as she probably should have expected: sprawled out on one of the fainting couches, eyes closed, absolutely comatose. The other twin was resting on his chest, in almost the exact same position, only face-down with his cheek pressed against his father’s chest. The Spine was crouched close by, keeping a silent vigil to ensure that no one fell out of place. He looked up when he heard Iris enter the room and offered her a small, cheery wave.

Iris felt her face twitch into a gentle smile. The image was so sweet. She had been wondering what Peter was up to all this time. He’d been almost inseparable from his son since that morning. In all the time Iris had spent with him, every time she took her eyes off of him, she would turn back to find him staring at his son. The baby’s eyes were open only intermittently, and he was still just as prone to dozing off as his brother, but since the bone-chilling discovery he had made that morning, Peter always seemed to be waiting for his son’s eyes to open again. And the discovery certainly  _ was _ chilling, or at least the way her employer had reacted made her feel that way.

To say he’d been shocked would have been a grave understatement. He’d nearly had a breakdown on the spot, was trembling so badly that Rabbit had to take his son from him for fear that the baby would be dropped. He had spent the following few minutes mumbling things Iris could barely understand, if only because they were all about a woman who she had never met. Eventually he managed to collect himself enough to stand on his own again, but after that moment, he was unable to take his eyes off his son. 

Iris had been considering his words for some time since the morning, and they still didn’t quite fall in line with her sense of logic. Maybe he was only sleep-deprived, and such things were the workings of his imagination leaching into his waking life. He had spent the last few months plagued by nightmares, as Iris knew all too well. Perhaps the blue matter had changed the infant’s eyes to make them the color they were. Then she remembered that Peter’s own eyes were a cloudy charcoal grey. 

_ As if our lives needed any further layers of impossibility _ , she thought as she knelt down next to The Spine and gazed at her employer’s slumbering form. “How long has he been like that?” she asked.

“A while,” The Spine replied. “He and I were playing with my brother at first, but then my brother started getting sleepy, so Peter held him for a while, like he’s doing right now, and then this happened.” He nodded at his inventor. “Rabbit told me it’s normal for humans to do this sometimes.”

“It is,” Iris affirmed. “But I have to wake him up. Johona has something we need to talk about, and he needs to be there for it.” 

Peter stirred a little at the sound of Iris’s voice, and she reached her hand out to run her fingers through his hair. His face drifted into a drowsy smile before he opened his eyes. “Hello,” he said breathlessly.

“Hello, there,” she responded. “Jo needs you in the study.”

“What for?” Peter asked absently as he took in his surroundings. His gaze landed first on The Spine, then at the infant resting on his chest, who was just starting to wake up along with him. 

“Names and birth certificates. Apparently there’s a lot of planning and paperwork that goes into human existence that we hadn’t anticipated.”

“Oh, joy,” Peter groaned. His son made a small, discontented sound, and he cradled the baby’s body with his hands while he sat himself up. “I hope I didn’t miss anything important while I was asleep.”

“Not that I’m aware of. Far as I know it’s all been the same monotony as when you were awake.”

Holding his son against his chest, Peter sat up and leaned against the back of the couch. The baby’s eyes had opened again, and were now darting all around the room, taking in every last bit of the scenery with avid fascination. Iris noticed the tenseness in Peter’s frame right away; he was trying not to look. He must have been staring at his son’s face all day, wondering about the apparently impossible phenotype that he displayed. Iris couldn’t vouch for what Peter was seeing. Maybe Johona might have a word or two to say when she saw it for herself.

Despite his best efforts, Peter’s gaze eventually slid down to his son again. A faint sadness seeped into his eyes for a moment, but he quickly shook it off and turned his attention elsewhere. “How’s his brother doing?”

“Very well, since we last fed him. In fact, he’s barely been awake at all.” Iris pulled at the sash over her shoulder to gently extract her sleepy son. He wriggled and whined as if startled. Iris saw his eyelids twitch a bit, but thought nothing of it when his brother’s wide blue eyes fixed on her. He cooed and reached out weakly in her direction.

Peter laughed softly. “Looks like he’s missed his mother.”

Iris grinned, all too happy to take her other son into her arms. Peter cradled the one she’d been holding until that point, and when she turned her eyes to him, by some strange magic, he seemed to have relaxed. She wondered if it was spending so much time with his less-probable son that had wound him up so tightly. It must have been. Maybe a little distance between the two of them would be good.

The Spine perched himself beside Peter, leaning on the arm of the couch. His glass-green eyes carefully studied the infant in his inventor’s arms. “The Jon was right,” he remarked. “They’re very different from each other.” He took a brief second to turn his gaze to Peter. “Why is that?”

“That’s just the way that humans are,” the engineer explained. “I could go into details about genetics and such, but I don’t know if you’re ready to learn about all that yet.”

“Oh. Okay.” The automaton went back to watching as the baby’s small, chubby hands grasped at his father’s fingers. Peter poked at his son’s nose, and he squeaked in surprise. The Spine shuddered at first, then laughed, before finally leaning in a little further, a wistful look on his face. “Peter... can I...”

“You were just doing the same thing with his brother. Of course you can.”

Iris watched as The Spine’s faceplate pulled into an elated smile. Her face took on one of its own as she cradled her other son, absently watching the three of them with equal fondness. The automaton carefully extended his arm over Peter’s shoulder, letting his hand draw close to the baby’s face. The moment his fingertip brushed his cheek, the infant let out a shrill, startled cry.

The Spine drew back, looking even more upset than the baby. “D-did I do something wrong?” he frantically asked.

“N-no, no, I don’t think so,” Peter reassured him. It then dawned on Iris what the problem had been, and apparently that very thing occurred to her employer at the same time. “It’s because your hands are cold. You weren’t wearing your gloves.”

“Oh... oh no.” The Spine looked despondently down at his hands. “But I... I just wanted to...”

“It’s not that big a problem,” Iris reassured him. “You just need to remember the gloves next time.”

“So that’s why Rabbit’s gloves stay on all the time,” he mumbled to himself.

“That’s part of the reason,” Peter began to elaborate. “See, the original reason was because-” 

Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a high, drawn-out squeal. Iris’s gaze dropped instinctively to her son. He was awake, but quiet, and he was squirming to try and face his brother. She looked down at the baby in Peter’s lap to see that his face was twitching again, his tiny hands rubbing blindly at his eyes. Her employer let out an excited gasp, and he brushed his thumb over his son’s forehead, whispering encouragements to him that Iris could barely hear. The infant whined again while his eyes continued to flutter.

Then they were open, and Iris’s heart nearly stopped.

* * *

His son’s eyes were a warm shade of deep brown. That much Peter could tell, from what he saw as the the infant’s gaze flicked from one part of the scenery to another. 

“He’s seeing,” The Spine murmured in amazement.

“Yeah,” Peter breathlessly replied. “He is. He can see you now.”

“What do I look like to him?”

“Strange, probably, although I’d say everything does.” He stroked his fingertips over his son’s soft, downy head. “Hello, there,” he whispered. “It’s lovely to see you, too.”

The room was silent for a moment, save for the soft snuffling noise of the infant's quickening breath. He wriggled a bit in Peter’s arms, maybe startled by the sudden awareness that he had sight, a whole new way of perceiving the world around him. There was something moving about the look in his eyes. Iris remained in the periphery of his sight, and he felt tension radiating off of her as their son’s eyes darted in her direction. It wasn’t until Peter finally raised his own line of sight to meet with hers that it began to dawn on him exactly what he was looking at.

Iris opened her mouth and drew a shaky breath. When she spoke, she seemed to have reverted to the scared, shaky mouse of a woman he had once known. “C-can I... can I have him back for a moment?” she unsteadily asked.

Peter nodded wordlessly, and they exchanged twins. The brown-eyed baby cooed when he was transferred to his mother’s arms, and Iris stared down at him, holding the tiny bundle of his body in front of her as if he were some priceless artifact. She wandered off to the opposite corner of the room, an indescribable expression plastered across her face, a nameless mix of wonder, affection and absolute horror. Peter clutched his other son, his nerves suddenly on edge. Her expression was unsettlingly familiar. Something in all of this seemed wrong, and the notion left him feeling unsure whether or not he should be afraid.

Finally, Iris spoke up again. “H-he... he has my father’s eyes,” she murmured. “And my mama always told me... she told me I had them, too.”

“But how...” Peter started, but there seemed no real way to finish the sentence.

“I could never see it when she told me,” she went on. “But I guess certain features are easier to pick out one someone else.” Peter could see her starting to tremble as she made her way back towards him. “The only... th-the only thing I don’t understand is...” Her voice quivered, and Peter stood up and freed one arm to pull her close to him. Iris pressed her lips to her son’s forehead and without warning, began to cry. “H-how does he look like me?”

She slumped against Peter and buried her face in his chest. He nestled his face into her hair, only able to comfort her with whispers of “I don’t know,” which he was sure did nothing to allay her emotional confusion. She could only sob for a few seconds, though, before the infant in her arms voiced his indignation at being squashed between them.

Iris gasped and immediately took a step back, as if startled by her own carelessness. “I-I’m sorry,” she gushed, tears still in her eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so, so sorry... I’m sorry... sweet, sweet little thing, I’m so sorry.”

“I think he forgives you,” Peter cut in, a faint smile returning to his face.

Iris laughed, the last of her tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away before putting another kiss to her son’s nose. He hummed and reached out to tangle his tiny fingers in her hair. “I-I only... I never thought I would live to see this day.”

He didn’t need to ask what day she meant. He was well aware that long ago, she had lost all hope of ever being able to see a piece of herself in someone else. The knowledge was warm and reassuring to him now, harrowing as it had been when she had first told him; she deserved this much after having her dreams dashed so many times. The world owed her for all it had put her through. Nothing needed to be said. Nothing was probably the best thing to say, as The Spine was still in the room.

Remembering his invention, Peter turned to him. “Can you go on upstairs to the study and tell Johona that we’ll be with her in a moment?”

“Right away, Peter,” he said with an affirmative nod before he turned and started for the foyer.

When he had disappeared, Peter took another moment to put his free arm around Iris, lean his head against hers and place a reassuring kiss on her forehead. “We should get going,” he urged her. “You said yourself that we have a lot to discuss.”

Shakily, she nodded, never taking her eyes off of their twin sons cradled between them. They were staring at each other now, looking both curious and shocked; they’d known of each other for months, but it wasn’t until then that they were truly aware of each other. The blue-eyed one reached out an arm and poked at his brother’s nose, to which the other infant responded with an indignant whine. Iris laughed, then allowed Peter to lead her out of the room, keeping his arm draped over her shoulders.

All three of the automatons had already been gathered in the study when they arrived, and Johona was sitting comfortably in Peter’s desk chair, a small mountain of assorted papers splayed out across the top of the desk. The engineer felt a shudder travel through his body as it came to light that he would probably have to fill all of them out himself. His friend greeted him with a tired half-smile. “Nice of you to show up, Walter.”

“It wasn’t like I had a long way to go. I  _ live _ here, if you don’t recall.”   


“Of course, of course.” Johona kindly stood up from the chair and took up a new position perching atop the desk. “Now, it seems to me like you’ve taken notice of the forms that town hall was kind enough to lend me overnight.”

“When do they need the information back by?”

“Within the week, but the sooner we get this squared away, the better, “ Jo sharply explained. “Normally, all this would have been taken care of by whatever hospital these two were born in or whichever midwife was in charge of delivering them. But, because...” She paused, taking a second to glance up at the three automatons in the room. “Because there were, um... certain irregularities, we have to take care of all this ourselves.”

“Alright,” Iris said. She inhaled deeply, and Peter saw her chest inflate to give her the illusion of confidence. “It’s just filling out forms. Nothing we can’t manage.”

Peter, meanwhile, was already starting to get a headache. All this time he’d managed to avoid the public eye, and of course it had come back to bite him. “There’s so much else to it, though. We haven’t even talked about what we’re going to name them.”

“Th-thass’ okay, I got names for both of ‘em!” Rabbit excitedly cried out. “The fluffy one is g-g-go-onna be named Fluffy, and the other one is gonna be n-named Delilah, ‘c-c-cause of what you said about his eyes!”

Peter felt a cold clutch in his chest at the sound of his departed friend’s name. There was something so wrong about the way she’d just said it. So flippantly. So careless. He tried not to let his anger rise to the surface. Rabbit had no idea, surely... he hadn’t told her a word about who Delilah was... hadn’t even gone near explaining the grim reality of death.

“Awwww, b-but _ I _ wanted to name the fluffy one,” The Jon whined, interrupting his thoughts.

“I already told you, we can’t just name them,” The Spine countered. “We have to talk about it with everyone first. And nobody’s going to name that one after the fact that his hair is fluffy.”

“W-w-why not? Pappy named  _ you _ after your spine.”

“Who?” Peter blurted out, caught totally off-guard.

“Oh, r-right. Forgot to t-t-tell ya that’s what I’m c-c-call... calling you now,” Rabbit hastily explained. “It’s another word for  _ f-father _ . Johona t-t-told me so.”

“Uh... alright, then,” her creator stammered, too surprised to argue.

“As we were saying,” Johona cut in, “we need to sort out the naming issue before we get any further.”

“Right, right.” Peter forcibly got his mind back on track. 

Iris took it upon herself to get a pen and sheet of paper, and within the next few minutes, everyone in the room had allocated themselves into the most opportune positions to voice their opinions on the babies’ names. Iris pulled up a spare chair that had been taken from another room and set to work taking down their options for each.

“Arthur probably isn’t so great an idea.”

“What’s wrong with one of them having the name of an honorable king?”

“It brings back bad memories of, well... you know who.”

“Alright, so that one’s out.”

Iris scribbled a name off the list.

“Maybe we should start pulling names from something other than fairy tales?”

“We could look into biblical names.”

“I’d rather not. You know I’ve never been religious.”

“Then again, it’s fairly difficult to come across a name that  _ isn’t _ somehow biblical.”

Sebastian was scrawled down, and Lysander right below it. Alongside it were Antonio, Lawrence, Copernicus and Oliver. Galahad was still in the mix somewhere, a vestige of Iris’s love for Camelot. Jason, Apollo and Orpheus fell in when Greek mythology came up. Somewhere, lost in the middle of all of it, was Ernest.

“Do you think it’s worth bothering with middle names?” Peter asked at one point.

“I’ve never had one,” was Johona’s reply.

“But I did,” Iris countered. “And so does Peter.”

Charles. Claudio. William. Darwin. Edgar. Nero. Fluffy, just to keep Rabbit quiet.

It felt like the end of an era when the whole endeavor was finally over, and Peter’s headache had blossomed into a persistent throb in his temples. It was barely even a beginning to the work they had ahead of them, but at least it was finished.

The blue-eyed twin would be named Jason Orpheus. The brown-eyed one would be Lawrence Galahad, with the nickname “Fluffy” crammed into the middle, to be kept unredacted on the list but not put down on any official documents. There was something satisfactory, they all agreed, about their names being a bit strange. Having an average first name and something outlandish follow it was, according to a giddy, laughing Iris, the best structure. Peter found it impossible to argue with the smile on her face.

Then came the issue of what would come after.

“Whose surname should I be putting this under?” Johona asked.

Peter opened his mouth to answer, but found that his tongue had gone entirely dry. Speechless, he turned to look at Iris, who seemed equally at a loss, if not even more so. She blinked and glanced back to Johona, spurring Peter to do the same. She knew about their official agreement, to be sure. It was the basis on which they had been operating for months. But did she know about...

She must have. Johona was an extremely intuitive person. She’d seen her friend kiss the woman who used to be his maid, still technically was, but at the same time very much wasn’t. 

“W-well... I...” Peter tried to begin. “Um... y-you’ve got the adoption forms with you as well, don’t you?”

Johona nodded and tapped on a stack of documents about halfway through the pile. “They’re here for when we get to them.”

He nodded shakily, then turned to Iris. “You’re, uh... you  _ are _ going to be the one adopting them, so we may as well...” All of a sudden, he stopped short. “But if my name is on the birth certificates... oh, god. That isn’t going to make any sense.”

“Put my name down on the birth certificates,” Iris said, with no warning and a startling tone of finality.

The sentence slammed into Peter like a train moving at full speed. He took a breath to protest, but no coherent words would escape his mouth, and by the time he finally regained his ability to speak, Johona’s hand had already started moving. His head spun to face Iris, his face feeling numb and surely looking that way as well.

“Peter,” Iris unsteadily began. “Th-there’s... something I should probably tell you.”

Peter tried to respond, but his whole respiratory system felt rigid and all he could manage was a pitiful, emotionless “Uh-huh.”

“Before I say anything else, you should know that I... I only did it to keep your secret safe. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d... I’d been thinking about it for a while before you gave birth. How we were going to feed the twins, I mean. All I could think of... a-all I knew to do was to go to Miriam and ask her for help, because she has so many connections all over the city. I had to give her an explanation of  _ some _ kind.”

“Iris,” Peter slowly asked, “what did you tell Miriam?”

“I-I... I sort of said... that I was the one who had the twins.”

For a second, everything was still. Peter heard the automatons whispering behind him, then a swift shuffling and clanking as Rabbit grabbed both her brothers by the arm and quickly ushered them out of the room. As soon as they were gone, he felt his face crumple. 

“Iris, you didn’t have to...”

“I’m sorry! I just didn’t know what else to say. No other explanation would make sense!”

“But what did Miriam even say when you told her?”

“She took it rather well, actually. Didn’t even scold me for what I’d done. She even told me a story of her own, how she’d already been pregnant for three months before she married her husband.”

Even with her assurances, the revelation didn’t quite sit right with Peter. He turned away and stared at the wall, leaning his elbow against the edge of the desk with his hand pressed to his mouth.

“I never expressly said that you were the father, Peter.”

“But didn’t she ask you?’

Iris shook her head. “Surprisingly, no. As far as she knows, the twins could be anyone’s. She’s never seen them in person.”

“Alright,” he numbly murmured in what probably sounded like agreement. “Alright.” There was a pause. “But what about  _ you _ , Iris?”

“What  _ about _ me?”

“You’ll be... everyone is going to think you... I-I can’t even imagine what they’ll... Iris, even if they don’t know they’re mine... oh, hell. Of course they will, they were born  _ blue _ for Christ’s sake!”   


“You know I don’t have a reputation, Peter. I have nothing to ruin.”

“But... if this is what you become known for...” He wanted to continue, at the same time didn’t, and his words ran out of steam too soon for him to decide which desire was stronger. He sighed, looked down at the pale infant in his lap- Jason Galahad, as he would now be named- and sighed. “You know, you’re right. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Or it shouldn’t, anyway.” He steeled himself and set his gaze on Johona. “Jo, can I ask you to bring out the adoption forms for a bit? I want you to put my name on them.”

“W-wait...” Iris stammered, though Johona already had the documents in hand.

“Listen,” Peter began. “If you were so willing to stick your neck out for me, it’s only right that I do the same.”

“But...”

“Look at the twins, Iris. There’s no getting around the fact that they’re mine. If there’s anything I can be sure of right this second, it’s that I love the twins and I love  _ you _ , and may armageddon itself strike me down if that ever changes. Now for the time being, I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to marry you and put this right in a more traditional way. But even with the setbacks we have, I fully intend to take responsibility for my actions.”

Iris stared at him like a deer in front of an oncoming trolley, looking as though she were about to faint. Beside the two of them, Johona made a low, guttural noise and pressed her hand to her chest. “Dear god,” she moaned. “I think you two are killing me.”

“Y-you’d...” Iris squeaked. “Y-you would... for... for me?” The words just never seemed to come out strung together the right way.

“If I had a ring to prove it I would show it to you,” Peter confirmed. “Sadly, I don’t, but I suppose this could be the next-best thing. Besides, Jo’s already gotten the forms, and it might be a little awkward to have to return them to town hall unsigned.”

The tension in the air was palpable for a brief second, when Iris softly asked Johona to take her son for a moment. The nurse agreed, and as soon as Lawrence was safely in her arms, Iris threw herself across the table, took Peter’s face in her hands and kissed him like she never had before. Her cheeks were flushed and glossy when she separated from him. Peter watched her collapse back into her chair, not a word exchanged between them as Johona returned Lawrence to his mother, and somehow an idiotic smile had made its way onto Peter’s face with little to no explanation whatsoever.

The rest of the paperwork went by without event. With the most glaring issues sorted out, the following eons that it took to fill in the proper information went by with relative ease. When it was all over, it was decided that the paperwork would be sent in to town hall the following afternoon. Johona would bring the forms, and Iris would bring Jason and Lawrence to confirm that they really and truly existed. In some profound, pointless way, Peter took great comfort in the knowledge that they did.

By tomorrow, it would be down in writing; his sons were real.

* * *

Johona was honestly surprised by how chipper Peter seemed in the morning. She supposed that he was used to being sleep-deprived. It still didn’t quite make sense to her when he showed up in the kitchen shortly after she had arrived there herself, the sunrise not even fifteen minutes behind them.

“What’s gotten into you?” she found herself asking, and her words earned her a squint-eyed sideways glance from her old friend.

“Well, it might have been nice to start with a  _ good morning _ or something like that, but to each their own, I suppose,” he tossed back as he set the kettle out on the stove.

“I’m only saying that you seem well-rested for all the crying and shuffling that I heard last night.”

Peter huffed and leaned back against the counter. “If the noise was bothering you so much, then how come you never did anything about it?”

“I never said it bothered me. Besides, I was only awake for a part of it.”

“What can I say?” Peter said with a shrug. “They’re two days old, and they don’t really grasp how time works.” He wandered to the pantry and began shuffling through boxes of tea. “If I spent the entire day sleeping on and off, I’d have a hard time getting through the night too.”

Johona had to laugh at least a little at that. “How is Iris holding up?” 

“Very well,” he said. His lips took on a half-smile, tired but undeniably proud. “Last night was kind of a contest between us of who could wake up get to the boys faster. She kept winning, and that’s likely the reason why she isn’t here right now.”

“Probably,” she agreed, drumming her fingers absently on the table. “This might be the first time I’ve seen you without her since the twins arrived.”

“Is it really?” Somehow, he seemed surprised. 

“She’s been clinging to you like a burr. I’d be surprised if she weren’t following you into the bathroom or watching you change.”

“That’s the thing about caring for newborns, Jo. It’s a bit of a team effort. Trying to do it alone... that’s an ordeal I honestly can’t imagine.”

“Mm-hmm,” Johona mumbled, nodding along. “Speaking of an ordeal to go through alone.” She paused, chewing at her lip, resentment at a low boil in her core. Her eyes glanced briefly up at her friend. He stood deathly still, tea in hand, staring at her. The look on his face told her he knew what was coming.

“Jo...” he tried to begin.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she finished for him.

Peter’s mouth hung open, as if he had some kind of a response to give, but the only sound he made was the fast, shaky inhale and exhale of breath. It caught in his throat once or twice, and she waited for the awkward, high-pitched choking to turn into words, but too many seconds went by and she lost her patience.

“The first thing I want to know,” she snapped, “is how long you were planning on going through with the procedure without me.”

“I-I wasn’t...” Peter stammered.

“Are you telling me there was no planning involved? You just went in blind?”

“N-no, that isn’t what I’m saying at all!” he protested. “It was only in the last few days. You  _ know _ how bad my condition was getting.”

“I might have known better if you had just said something!” 

“What the hell would I have said that you wouldn’t have seen just by looking at me?” 

“ _ You’re _ the one who’s always so fond of covering up his symptoms.”

“Every time I tried to bring the issue into conversation, you’d just push me away!”

“And you could have kept pressing me, but you didn’t!”

“Because I knew you were never going to do it!”

Johona’s nails dug into the unvarnished table. “If you had just waited even a few hours more, you would have been wrong.”

The kettle whistled, and Peter ran to take it off the stove. He spent a minute in sullen silence, pouring the water into his teacup and refusing to meet his friend’s gaze.

“I was going to perform it that afternoon,” she stated, her voice dull and matter-of-fact. “As soon as I had gotten home. I’d have used up the rest of the morphine to put you under and had Iris assist me.”

“And how the  _ hell _ was I supposed to know that?” Peter hissed, slamming the kettle down onto the stove.

“You don’t have to be a mind reader to have some  _ godforsaken common sense _ , Walter.”

“So common sense would have been waiting around until I burst open like a frozen pipe?”

“You know, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you’re so obsessed with risking your life. What is it that you find so appealing in putting yourself at risk and scaring everyone you know half to death?”

“Listen, just because you put more stock in stuffed-shirt certifications than what you  _ yourself _ are actually capable of-”

“This isn’t about certifications. I said I would have-”

“Just because you’re too much of a  _ coward _ to take a risk for once in your life!”

_ Coward. _

Johona wasn’t even sure where their conversation had gone. It had devolved into a shouting match, she thought, until there was nothing between them but each trying to scream over the other. She could barely tell what either of them were saying. And then there was that.

“ _ You _ went behind my back,” she said, slowly, steadily and unbearably cold. “ _ You _ were the one who was willing to risk his own life and potentially those of his unborn children just to get out of feeling pain for a little longer. And might I add that  _ you _ were the one who insisted on going through with all of it alone.”

“How else was I supposed to-”

“Why didn’t you ask Iris for help, dimwit?”

“Because if something had gone wrong and I didn’t make it, you would have blamed her!” Peter shouted, his voice cracking in mid-sentence. “You might not want to believe you would have, but I know the way you are, Jo.”

“And I suppose that means you know I’m a coward as well.”

His only response was his fast, scathing breath. Johona sat for a moment and watched him silently seethe. Finally, she set her hands down on the table and stood up, the scrape of her chair against the floor jarring in the tense silence.

“I’d say this conversation is over,” she declared. “I have to get to work. I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

She didn’t wait for Peter to respond as she spun on her heel, ignored the fact that her shift didn’t begin for another two hours, forgot that she didn’t normally leave until eight, and walked out of the room.

* * *

The day was slow, which was a good thing.

As far as the house was concerned, everyone’s schedule was now being ruled over by the twins. Iris finally woke up the third time that they started crying again, in spite of Peter’s best efforts to keep them quiet. They each tried to go on with their own tasks of some sort- Iris took to her usual cleaning duties, and Peter began refining his designs for his next creation- but they were always interrupted in the middle of things when Jason was hungry, or Lawrence needed his diaper changed, or some other such monotony that needed to be immediately attended to, lest the whole house suffer under the tyranny of their shockingly loud, ear-piercing wails.

By the afternoon the two of them had collapsed on Peter’s bed, the twins between them. Little was said while they watched the two babies interact, staring at one another, experimentally poking and prodding and occasionally giving a shove strong enough to roll his brother towards his corresponding parent.

“Can you believe that this is going to be the life we’ll be living from now on?” Peter asked for no real reason.

“Are you asking me if I’m surprised, or if I’m correctly registering what’s going on in front of me?” Iris countered.

“Could be either, really.”

“If it’s the first one, then the answer is no. As for the second, I’m a little too tired to give you a real answer.”

Peter laughed and extended his arm to brush a strand of Iris’s hair behind her ear. “I think it’s safe to say I’m on that exact page with you.”

Lawrence reached out and squashed his brother’s cheek with his palm, Jason squealed and swatted him away, and in the distance, the sound of movement echoed down the hallway.

Iris was sitting up instantly, her gaze trained toward the hall. “Was that the door?”

“Might’ve been.” Peter glanced at the clock. “Good god, is that what time it is already?”

Both of them were standing up again in a second, gathering up the twins in their arms. Iris hastily grabbed two scarves from Peter’s closest before they set out to the foyer.

“Johona’s back,” The Jon announced when he met them at the top of the stairs, though they could see her well enough from where they stood. “She said she’s already got the papers from your study. She just needs Iris to bring the twins out with her. Her cab’s already waiting out front.”

Peter’s heart sank as the orders were given. He tried not to show it. Neither of them would understand, but he sure as hell did. Johona couldn’t have still been angry about the fight they’d had that morning, could she? It was a problem of miscommunication. She had to be aware of that.

Outside his head, Iris was looking at him with a vaguely confused expression. He only shrugged and said, “Go on then, I guess.”

Iris took Jason in the crook of her arm, cradling him alongside Lawrence, and did just as she was asked. Peter watched her as she descended the stairs, and finally his eyes wandered to Johona, who was standing in front of the door and refusing to look at the upstairs landing. She greeted Iris cheerily enough, although Peter was too far away to really hear either of them. 

He felt so disconnected that he barely noticed their departure. One moment they were in front of the door, and the next they were gone. With a heavy sigh, Peter took a step back from the railing and headed down the stairs. There was something eerie about the manor being without them. 

The background noise of his automatons scampering about was an inordinate comfort to him, especially in the echoing, high-ceilinged library. He figured he could spend the empty time on research while he waited for the rest of the resident humans to return. He set out a few books, retrieved his notes and sketches from his study, and arranged the amalgamation on a coffee table. His pencil struck paper, and he started to write.

Then there was a knock at the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that sure was a chapter.  
> Wonder who that is at the door.  
> Hmmmmmmmmmmm it is a mystery.  
> See you next chapter.


	31. The Man Without A Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY, STEAM POWERED GIRAFFE! CHECK OUT THIS STORY I WROTE WHERE I DEFILED EVERYTHING YOU EVER WORKED TO CREATE! WATCH MY AWKWARD ABSTRACT TRAINS OF LOGIC AND INCORRECT HEADCANONS ABSOLUTELY DESTROY YOUR WORLD AND ITS FOUNDATIONS!  
> Have they proceeded not caring about anything I do? They have? Great. Now that my existential aggression about being small, stupid and inconsequential is out of the way, it's time for an actual author note.  
> So, we all like Lovecraftian beings? Well, not the proper kind. The kind that I fucked up to make suitable to my needs and personal tastes, just like anything else that I ever touch or take a liking to. Someone please tell me why I'm like this. I honestly can't stand it. Why is it that I feel a need to pull apart and restructure everything because I don't think it's good enough? Why can't I just be happy consuming content as it is served to me?  
> Well, if I were, we wouldn't be 31 chapters deep in the hell storm of awkwardness and perversion of nature that is this fanfiction.  
> Obligatory tag messages. On tumblr, it's fic: alaout, fic: artificial life, or whatever you want to call it, I guess. Also remember to blacklist under sexpg.  
> Thanks messages to volatileSoloiste, cicada_s, Devin and the two people who commented on my last chapter. I like comments. Those are nice things.  
> Trigger and content warnings? Do we need those today? Uh... let's see. Stranger danger, bandages, tall people, homages to Lovecraft and H G Wells.  
> More important are probably GRIEF, references to ABORTION, references to MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, and severe non-graphic mental and physical injury inflicted on a major character.  
> I think that just about covers it.

 

The sudden noise made Peter startle where he sat, sending his notes scattering across the table before him. His pencil hit the floor with a wooden clatter, and his head turned impulsively to face the foyer, as far from him as it currently was. He’d seen Jo and Iris leave the manor with the twins not an hour earlier. They couldn’t have come back already. In his every experience with town hall, officiations of any kind required hours on end of ceaseless waiting.

Another knock issued from the door before he could think on it any further. It was just as brisk and rhythmic as the first. Pushing his hesitations aside, Peter stood up on shaky legs and started for the door, reminding himself all the time that he’d given birth nearly three whole days beforehand and he no longer had to worry about his appearance so much; even though his body was far different from what it used to be, his oversized shirt would conceal the changes to his form well enough. 

He was halfway to the door when the third knock sounded, yet another clone of the first two. At the very least the visitor didn’t seem to be growing impatient. The insistence in their knocking wasn’t increasing at all. 

Peter stood only a few feet from the door, his hand hovering near the doorknob, when he stopped. At the very last moment, he thought to look through the cut-glass windows. Even if he had much less to hide than he did before, it was still better to err on the side of caution. 

He caught sight of a tall, dark figure standing on the porch outside. It looked nothing at all like Arthur Kahn had when he had come to visit. From what Peter remembered, the emissary hadn’t worn nearly so much black. That was all he could make out from where he stood. A long black coat, a wide-brimmed black hat, and nothing else. He couldn’t even discern a face in all that mess of an image. The visitor must have gotten bored and turned their back to the door to look off into the distance while they waited for him to respond.

_ Well _ , he thought nervously to himself,  _ they won’t have to be waiting much longer _ . He steeled himself and pulled the door open.

In the very same instant, the visitor turned around to face him. “Peter Alexander Walter.”

The words were a statement, not a question. It seemed like the stranger knew exactly where they were, exactly who they were facing. Like they had been expecting to see him at that very moment, and had been awaiting that moment for a long time.

Peter felt a shiver crawl down his spine at the sound of the visitor’s voice; low and modulated, every syllable ringing clearly in Peter’s skull as if the intention of his words were traveling into his very brain.  _ His _ words, assuming by the deep tone of his speech that this  _ was _ a man. He seemed like one. Yet something in Peter’s soul insisted that this assumption wasn’t right. “Y-yes?” he stuttered, not sure if that was the answer the visitor were looking for or not.

“Of course it is,” the visitor said, lilting almost into a laugh. “I’ve come to speak to you.”

Peter nodded along as he listened, taking a moment to inspect the visitor’s appearance, so little of which he’d been able to see through the windowpane. In all honesty, there wasn’t very much more to him beyond what Peter already knew. The only parts that he’d missed were the bandages that covered his face. 

Thick strips of off-white gauze were wrapped in dense layers around the stranger’s entire head, continuing in an unbroken line down his neck and disappearing under the collar of his shirt. The covering was applied so thoroughly that Peter couldn’t even decipher where the man’s features should be; his head was as close to a smooth object as an organically curved surface could be. They were shiny and discolored, seemed to be soaked with something, but Peter was reluctant to think too much on what that something might be.

“About what?” he hesitantly asked the stranger.

There was no visible smile on the man’s face, nor any sound or indication of laughter, but the man somehow exuded an aura of warmth and confidence. “Important matters, obviously,” he said. “Ones I’m afraid may be better unspoken of around open doors.” His unseen eyes flickered up to follow the lines of the doorframe. “For the sake of conciseness, we can call this a business proposal.”

Peter finally found his footing and leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. “What manner of business, and what sort of proposal?”

“If you’d be kind enough to let me in, Mr. Walter, it would be my pleasure to explain.”

A little tremor of fear rippled through Peter’s bones. He’d had just about enough of being asked to let strangers into his home, and would have been glad to never be put into such a position again, but the cosmos didn’t seem to have any intention of letting him off easy. His grip tightened subconsciously on the door handle, and the stranger must have noticed somehow, because he chose his next words carefully. 

“I promise I’m not here with any intention to harm you, Mr. Walter. Whatever you’re afraid of, rest assured that you’re safe with me.”

Peter didn’t know how to respond. The very last thing he’d wanted that day would have been a visitor. But even as the thought ran through his head, he found himself stepping back, reluctantly pulling the door open with him. “I...” he stuttered. “I’m going to have to request that we make this quick. My housemates are currently away, and I’m not too sure how they would feel about my taking visitors in their absence.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me. I can be brief when I need to,” the man cordially replied as he stepped through the doorway on a set of astoundingly long legs. It only sank in then exactly how tall the man was; Peter had to tilt his head back to meet where he supposed his eyes should be. The stranger must have towered at least six inches above him, and Peter himself was what most would consider abnormally tall. He felt shaken by intimidation. Fear seeped slowly into his bloodstream, and immediately he was struck by the impression that he’d just made a terrible mistake and he had to turn the stranger away before it was too late.

Almost within the instant, he was washed over by another wave of calm. The visitor unbuttoned his coat, removed his hat and set both upon the coatrack by the door. “Well, then,” he said in a friendly tone, setting his gloved hands into his pockets. “If you were about to sit down for a conversation, where do you wager you’d do it?”

“Th-the parlor is just down this way. Here, I’ll lead you.” Peter started walking, and he heard... or felt, he wasn’t entirely sure... he somehow sensed the stranger following behind him. He told himself that he was hearing the man’s footsteps, but the house was so eerily quiet in that moment that he would have been surprised if he could hear anything at all. He paused as they crossed through the doorway.

The room was warm and comforting as always, with the fire crackling on the hearth and its warm glow casting onto the old, overstuffed furniture. Something about it made Peter feel just a bit better. The man looked to him over his shoulder as he passed him and approached the fire. “I’d like to warm up for a moment, if that’s alright with you,” he said. “January has been unusually bitter this year, hasn’t it?”

“It certainly has,” Peter responded. “Would you like a cup of tea or anything? I imagine you must’ve come a long way to find me.”

“There’s no need. I don’t drink.” The stranger knelt down and gazed into the flames. He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them out towards the blaze. The sleeves of his slate grey shirt pulled back a little ways past his wrists, revealing yet more bandages underneath. “If you’d like to get anything, though, I can wait. I’m in no hurry that you aren’t in yourself.”

It occurred to Peter then exactly how long it had been since he’d last eaten, but at that moment, his nerves wouldn’t have allowed him to keep anything down. “It’s alright,” he said. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Hm.” The stranger nodded along to his words, though his intonation sounded as if he didn’t believe him. “If you say so. Where shall I sit?”

“Anywhere is fine. I don’t delegate furniture.”

Another baseless rush of warmth. “Alright,” the stranger said. He stood up and settled himself down again in the closest chair, leaning back and crossing his legs in front of him. He cocked his head and looked at Peter, who couldn’t see his face but imagined that it was fixed with an expectant expression.

The engineer found a place for himself on the couch across from him. 

“Now, then,” the stranger said. “You have questions for me, don’t you?”

“Quite a number of them,” Peter nervously replied. “One being who you are.”

“That’s always the way these things start, isn’t it?” He snickered to himself, and Peter got the distinct impression that he’d been having these sorts of conversations for a long time. “I’m a part of an organization, Mr. Walter. One member in a sprawling network of people whose reach extends farther than you could ever imagine.”

“And what is this organization for?”

“To put it in terms you’ll understand, we maintain peace and prevent imbalance of justice.”

“So you’re some kind of police force?”

“More of a guild of ambassadors and diplomats. But if it comes down to it, police work can mesh with our responsibilities as well.”

“Interesting,” Peter remarked, nodding along despite the fact that he was still hopelessly confused. “Are you here to arrest me, then? I’ve caused some kind of disturbance, and you’ve come to dispose of me and set it right?”

The stranger actually laughed this time, the sound full-bodied and mirthful. “Far from it, Mr. Walter,” he said. “I’m here because of what you’ve discovered. It seems that you’ve been selected.”

Peter’s brain stalled. “Selected?” he murmured numbly.

“The blue matter chose you, Mr. Walter. And now I’ve been sent here to recruit you.”

“To your ambassador guild?” 

“Or police force. Whatever name you feel suits it best.”

Nothing suited it best, Peter thought to himself. Nothing he could think of, anyway, because he still hadn’t the foggiest idea of what the stranger was referring to or what it entailed. “There’s still so much I don’t understand, though,” he said. “What do you mean, the blue matter chose me?”

“Well, let me put it like this,” the stranger began, steepling his fingers in front of him. “If you can state it concisely, how much can you tell me about the properties of blue matter?”

“How much can I tell you?” Peter mused. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch, thinking. “I’ve been studying the substance for years, but there’s still a great deal of work to be done. I don’t know what I can tell you that will remain accurate if I choose to study it further.”

“I wasn’t asking you to be perfectly correct,” the stranger said. “I want you to tell me what you think you know. What are the facts that your research has brought to you, Mr. Walter? What about blue matter do you believe to be true?”

“What I believe...” At first, Peter’s mind was blank, as if he’d forgotten everything that he had learned and had no idea where to start. The next second, facts were spilling out of him, almost beyond his control. “Blue matter is a semi-solid substance of yet unknown chemical makeup with characteristics indicating high levels of radioactivity. Its elusive nature renders it hard to study, as it is prone to dissolving into its surroundings shortly after being separated from them, making it a difficult substance to capture and collect. In my experiments, it has proven to have reality-altering properties, including the generation of inconsistencies in time, spatial form and even conscious awareness. In fact, judging by the data I’ve collected, I’ve been led to believe that this substance... blue matter... It may be what holds reality together as we know it.”

“And in addition to all of this, it has the ability to create sentient life when placed in the proper setting for such a synthesis to take place,” the stranger added. Peter stared at him for a moment, completely bewildered, before the stranger went on to say, “Your creations, Mr. Walter. The automatons. You can’t tell me that they don’t display all the characteristics of living,  _ thinking _ beings.”

Peter bristled at the last part of the stranger’s statement. No one should have known about his creations. They hadn’t been allowed outside yet. They weren’t ready. More importantly, the world wasn’t ready for them. “What do you know about my automatons?” he defensively responded.

The stranger laughed, the sound low, dark and subtle. “More than you can imagine,” he said.

“And do you want anything from them?” Peter warily asked.

“Strictly speaking, no. I’ll ask nothing of any of them unless they offer my organization their allegiance of their own accord. As I’m here to ensure that I have yours, they may not be far behind. You are their creator, after all. And don’t all children with decent parents idolize them when they’re young?”

Peter’s gaze sharpened, and he fixed the stranger with a determined glare. “There’s still a great deal I’m trying to comprehend, sir, but let me assure you of one thing,” he declared. “Your organization will not go anywhere near my automatons.”

“I already said, Mr. Walter, I have no intention of making use of them myself. Whether or not they wish to join our cause is entirely up to them. I’m afraid it’s a decision that neither you nor I can control.”

“Pardon my frankness, but I’m not entirely comfortable with how vaguely you’re speaking,” Peter quipped. “You seem to be implying a number of things, which you then deny in your very next sentence. You speak as if you’re a neutral force, yet your actions don’t follow that assumption. The mere fact that you came to find me at all speaks against that. Now I’ll ask the same question that I did a while ago, and I want you to answer honestly.” He paused, focusing his gaze where he could reasonably assume the stranger’s own eyes were. Slowly and deliberately, he asked, “What aim did you have in coming to find me?”

“I’ll give you the same answer as before, Mr. Walter. I was sent by the organization to recruit you into our network. You have been proven to have the necessary qualifications, and now we wish for you to join us.”

“What qualifications?”

“A general soundness of character is what most people assume. Specifically, though, it’s a mystery. All anyone can really say is that the blue matter has chosen you.”

Peter’s breath caught in his throat. There it was again, and he still didn’t understand any better what the phrase meant. He struggled to speak. “Blue matter...  _ chose _ me?”

“Why else do you think it allows you to handle it at all?”

“Is that why...” the engineer wondered out loud, his line of sight dropping to the floor. “Is that why it was so difficult to synthesize and manage before? Is that why I couldn’t gather enough to finish Rabbit’s core, and it kept disappearing, and then... then, when I finally finished her, and that explosion...”

**Yes. You will do nicely.**

“You heard it speaking to you, didn’t you?” the stranger inquired, though he sounded like he already knew the answer.

“But  _ I _ discovered  _ it _ ,” Peter sputtered. “It wasn’t the other way around. I was studying it and trying to determine its properties. I wasn’t trying to communicate with it, or derive any kind of peculiar powers from it, or...”  _ Or conceive twins,  _ he thought to himself. And yet, here he was.

“It wasn’t communicating with you at first either,” the stranger calmly explained. “You found out about its existence, and at the same time, it found out about yours. It was hesitant to let you manipulate it at first because it knew nothing about you, and you’ve seen the sort of power that blue matter contains.”

“Warping reality itself,” Peter murmured in agreement.

“You can imagine that it wouldn’t want that sort of power to fall into the wrong hands.”

“That makes sense, but so much else doesn’t. How is an inorganic substance aware of its surroundings? How does it think and make decisions? And... and why me?”

“Because it knows you know.” Again, that strange warmth that felt like a smile, even though he couldn’t see even a hint of one on his visitor’s concealed face. “The blue matter is neither organic nor inorganic. It simply is. It always has been. And now, since it’s studied you, it recognizes you as an ally.”

“And that’s why it allowed me to finish Rabbit? And the other two?” The stranger nodded, and Peter went on. “What if it hadn’t?”

“If blue matter really didn’t trust you, it would have torn itself from your grasp a long time ago. You never would have been able to summon it, nor gather and utilize its energy. In fact, you wouldn’t remember a thing about it at all, and we wouldn’t be here to have this conversation.”

“I see,” Peter said, although he really didn’t. “So, because the blue matter thinks I’m qualified, your organization wants to make an ally of me as well?”

“Precisely,” the stranger affirmed. 

“What did you say you were again? Some kind of ambassadors’ guild?”

“That’s one way to put it,” he said, indifferently flicking his gloved hand at the phrase. “We serve a number of different purposes, really. We are ambassadors, diplomats, activists, soldiers, all manner of social servants. Professionally we identify as peacekeepers. We work to keep the universe in balance.”

“The universe?” Peter wondered out loud, though he quickly shook it off. There was no way this man could be referring to the entire universe. He must have meant the cosmic balance of Earth, the human condition, something else vague and widely encompassing like that. “And what is it that you expect me to do?”

“Be available. That’s the basest request that any of us have. Have an open mind and sound spirit. Beyond that, you’re going to need to hone any skills you have. You’re a scientist and an engineer; thus I urge you to go on researching and building. In addition, it would probably be helpful to learn a few languages outside your native tongue and always be sensitive to foreign customs, as your position with us will likely require a great deal of travel. And it’s always advisable to learn how to fight.”

At that, Peter grew defensive all over again. “You want me to fight?” he tersely asked, the question not at all intended to be answered. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but someone has already asked that of me, and through that experience I’ve become fairly well-versed in denying stupid requests.”

“This is not a stupid request, Mr. Walter.” The stranger’s voice had grown severe, darkly insistent despite having no emotional inflection. “This is a necessity, and will be a great asset to your survival if you choose to pursue it.”

“My survival?” Peter barked, his voice rising along with the tension in the room. “What kind of operation are you asking me to be a part of?”

“A dangerous one, but one highly necessary to keeping life as we know it in check. Now if you will calm yourself down and let me finish my explanation-”

“What explanation? You’ve barely explained anything at all! This conversation has been moving in circles all this time, and I don’t understand any more than I did when we began.”

“I apologize if the idea I’m trying to get across isn’t very easy to explain in terms your Earthly understanding will be able to grasp. The network I’m speaking of is not solely of this world. It spans planets, galaxies, time and space itself. Your discoveries of blue matter have just barely scratched the surface.”

“And you want me to become a servant of this infinite network, is that it?” Peter snapped. He was finished with this odd man’s equivocal games. “You want me to research and build and fight? Is it weapons that you’re looking for? Because if that’s the case, then I’m terribly sorry, but you came to the wrong man!”

“I never said I was looking for weapons, Mr. Walter,” the stranger responded, chillingly calm. “The only point of contention is that we are peacekeepers. As strange as it might sound to you, sometimes that duty requires resorting to violence.”

Some strange, unidentified power drained all the built-up rage from Peter’s soul, and he sank back into his chair, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know why you keep asking this of me,” he said listlessly, whether it was the stranger or the very universe he was speaking to he wasn’t sure. “You know I’m not a fighter.”

“That isn’t true,” the stranger said. “ _ You _ don’t believe you’re a fighter. But under the right sort of context, everyone is capable eventually.”

“And what context do you think will change me?”

The stranger’s answer came all too easily.

“Your sons.”

The room fell silent. Peter sat deathly still in his chair. Everything around him felt stalled and frozen, like the planet itself had ceased to turn. Even the stranger across from him sat dormant like a mannequin, not even breathing, staring unwaveringly at him with his horribly unseen eyes. Peter’s pulse rushed in his ears. Eventually he managed to force his jaw open in an attempt to speak, but some unknowable force was keeping him from saying anything. His thoughts refused to form coherent sentences. He drew in a breath, but the stranger beat him to it.

“You’re about to ask me what I’m talking about,” he said in his calm, collected way. “You’re going to pretend that you don’t know what I’m referring to, as if everything that’s happened here over the past year can be covered up by simply pretending for a few minutes that it hasn’t happened.” The man stood up from the chair where he sat in a single fluid movement, once again stretching out to his full, frightening height. “You think I don’t know that the blue matter made a slight mistake in reading you, because how can such a powerful substance be capable of such an error?” He slowly moved towards Peter, making the engineer shrink back further into his chair. “The moment I saw you I could recognize the pain that you went through. I know how their presence has changed you. I know you were willing to do the impossible and allow the blue matter to destroy your foundations just so that they could exist.” He leaned down towards Peter, reaching a hand toward his abdomen. “And the incision is fresh. It’s still sore.”

Peter grabbed the stranger’s wrist before the tips of his gloved fingers could get anywhere near him. The stranger raised its head a little as if meeting his eyes, his absent face looking almost surprised. Peter’s knuckles were white, his hand shaking, but he was determined to stand his ground. Looking directly into the stranger’s invisible eyes, he asked, “What do you want me to do?” 

The stranger stared at him, his invisible eyes boring into Peter’s very soul. He felt hollow looking into that bandaged face, exposed and open in a way he’d never been made to feel before. There was another spike of feelings that he couldn’t explain- sincerity, maybe sympathy as well, neither of those feelings his own. The stranger drew back a little, though not with the intention of pulling his wrist from Peter’s grasp. He was giving him space, Peter realized. The visitor lowered himself to his knees, bringing his face level with his host’s.

“Face your fears,” he said, his voice just as empty of feeling as before. “Follow through with what you’ve been running from all this time.”

Peter knew exactly what the stranger was referring to, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. All he could manage to choke out was, “Was it Taggart that sent you here?”

The stranger shook his head. “No. He has no way to reach me. I came here because the impact of Thaddeus’s actions will reach far beyond him, beyond Taggart’s company, even beyond the borders of the continent and across the planet if nothing is done to stop him.”

There was that feeling again. Peter’s own guilt meshed with it. The conflicting emotions congealed like clotting blood in his chest, and he felt a weight in his core so heavy he feared it would crush him. “I only hid from him because I had to keep them safe,” he said. His voice cracked as he spoke, and his chest was tight as if he were on the edge of tears.

“I know.” The stranger’s hand slipped through his like liquid, and a second later his other hand had joined it, clasping Peter’s between them. He felt warmth flooding into his bones. “But you have to believe that they’re safe now. At this time, in this place, there’s nothing that can hurt them. Iris will protect them.”

“Of course she will.”

“You have to go,” the stranger insisted. “It has to be you that ends the fighting. You are the only one who has the means to do it. Once it’s over, we’ll be waiting for you to come to us.”

“It’s a bloodbath over there,” Peter cut in, his voice trembling. “What happens if I don’t come back?”

The stranger seemed to bristle at that suggestion. A second later, he bowed his head, and Peter thought he heard him sigh. “You’re just going to have to trust that no one will allow that to happen.”

He didn’t, but he nodded along anyway.

The stranger let go of him and stood up again. “Send a telegram overseas to Taggart Babclock by tomorrow night. Should you do this promptly enough, Arthur Kahn will be returning here next week. He never left the country after you turned him away. His employer won’t allow him to return to Africa until he gets an affirmative answer out of you. He’s simply been on the other coast, waiting for you to have a change of heart. You’ll have another two months to prepare yourself before you travel to the battlefield.”

Peter stood up from his chair, sensing that their discourse would soon be coming to a close. “Wait. How do you know all of this?”

The stranger laughed under his breath as he wandered toward the fireplace. “I’m aware of a great many things,” he said. He turned and crouched down, holding his hand out toward the coffee table. Without warning, Kepler emerged from underneath it, sniffing investigatively at his gloved fingers.

Peter’s mouth dropped open in shock. “H-how... how long as she been there?”

“About half an hour.”

“And how did she-”

“The Jon wanted her to play hide and seek with him and Rabbit. He’s still looking for her.”

Still reeling just a little, Peter went to lift the rabbit from the floor. “What else are you aware of?”

“I could stay here and tell you, but I would never get around to everything. Besides that, it fluctuates constantly. The world doesn’t stand still, you know.” He laughed a little more and nodded toward the clock. “I suppose I should be going. If your housemates mind unwanted guests as much as you say they do, it’s probably better that they don’t find me here.”

Peter followed his motion, and it quickly dawned on him just how late it had gotten. “I suppose you’re right,” he agreed, sitting Kepler up on his shoulder and rubbing behind her ears. “The last thing either of them needs is to find out that yet another stranger is telling me I need to go and fight someone else’s battles.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be your responsibility from this day forward. Though it’ll be your world’s battles you’ll be fighting, which, in a sense, makes them your own as well.”

Peter tried to find it in himself to laugh, but something burrowed in the back of his mind warned him that the stranger wasn’t joking. Their conversation was drawing quickly to a close, but Peter wasn’t ready to let this visitor leave just yet. There was still so much he didn’t understand, both pertaining to why the stranger said he had come, and everything else that had happened since Peter’s life had started turning odd.

The engineer opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t manage to get so much as a single syllable out before the stranger spoke first. “You have questions.”

Somehow that made Peter hesitate. The stranger had already cracked his mind open. He knew what Peter wanted to know. Still, he had the overwhelming feeling that his mysterious guest was going to wait for his host to ask his questions in his own voice. Haltingly, nervously, Peter put his thoughts into words. “You... you knew about my sons. Y-you could tell how they came into being. My ordeal has been over for two and a half days, and I’ve had all nine months with them to study it, but to this day I still don’t understand how I got into such an impossible situation at all.”

“I mentioned before,” the stranger replied, “that the blue matter misjudged you. You were distraught over a broken relationship, not to mention engaging frequently in sexual behavior, and the blue matter that was currently residing in your system came to the conclusion that you desperately wanted to reproduce. It combed through your memories searching for the individual that was most likely the one you wanted to be the other parent to your offspring, scraped together bits and pieces of your DNA, then started synthesizing a new organism by using those images as a base and creating a pocket dimension inside your body to house it.”

“But they turned out to be twins.”

The stranger sat back into the chair where he’d been before. “I believe we’ve established that fact.”

“No, I mean... they’re twins. Fraternal twins, that look like two completely different people. How did that happen?”

“That part is relatively simple, in comparison to everything else. The twins have two different mothers.”

In that second, words failed Peter entirely. He stared at the stranger, barely able to draw breath, his lips parted but no sound escaping. He choked, the small, strangled noise a sad attempt to speak. The stranger could sense how distressed he was, yet he still did nothing. He waited for Peter to speak, but the engineer refused to play into his hands again. The question was too absurd to ask. 

At long last, the stranger spoke. “You want to know why one of them looks like your lost friend.”

“Yes,” Peter just barely managed to respond.

The stranger let out a low, rattling sigh. Peter could feel that he didn’t want to tell him the truth. 

“He has her eyes. I could tell from the second he opened them,” he insisted, unwilling to give up just yet. “He’s so much like her, I can’t even begin to explain it.”

“That’s because he’s her son.”

Peter’s heart may well have stopped beating right then and there. He felt numb, empty, like nothing around him was real. He hadn’t just heard that.

“He’s Delilah’s son?” he repeated breathlessly.

“The blue matter was reading you,” his guest said, calm and solemn. “She was the one you wanted most. It built him from your memories of her.”

Delilah was Jason’s mother. Peter had watched her die unwed, childless, alone. And then he’d given birth to her son. He had carried her son. He’d tried to...

Peter couldn’t bring himself to think about it right then. There were more important matters at hand. “That must mean that Lawrence is Iris’s son.”

That odd rush of reassurance that felt like a smile he couldn’t see. The stranger was beaming at him. “Indeed he is.”

“But when I found out, Delilah was still all I could think about.”

“And Johona couldn’t detect a second heartbeat for quite some time, correct? It was because the blue matter became confused, making the embryo split.”

“Because I’d found Iris.” All those strange dreams he’d been having were starting to make sense. That apparition of Delilah, fusing with Iris, Ernest begging not to be forgotten. Peter let out a heavy exhale and buried his face in his hands. This was so much to take in at once.

“I wouldn’t say it’s advisable to drop any more information on your shoulders for the moment,” the stranger said, interrupting his torturous train of thought.

“Yeah,” Peter said through gritted teeth while rubbing at his temples. “I’d say it isn’t.”

“I should probably be on my way, then. I’ve stalled enough of your time as it is. It would be selfish of me to take any more.”

At that, the engineer raised his head to once again meet his guest’s nonexistent gaze. “I suppose you’re right,” he agreed. “Although it has been quite some time since I’ve had a guest even half as pleasant as you.”

The stranger laughed, sending a warm buzz across Peter’s nerves before rising to his feet once more. “There’s no need to flatter me, Mr. Walter,” he assured him.

“But a host who doesn’t make guests feel welcome isn’t a very good host at all, now is he?” Peter joked. 

“I may have to ask you to take up that point with Mr. Kahn when you see him next.”

Peter cradled Kepler in the bend of his arm as he followed the stranger to the foyer. “Is this the end of it, then?” he asked as they drew near to the front door. “You’re just going back to wherever you came from?”

The stranger chuckled darkly and shook his head. “This is far from the end, Peter Walter. It’s barely even the beginning.”

“Are you going to be coming back for me, though? After the fighting is over?”

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

The man moved to put on his coat. Something still wasn’t sitting right with Peter. It took far too long for him to realize what it was.

“But when I do, how will I know it’s you that I’m seeing?”

The stranger paused and looked over his shoulder to face him with his unseen eyes. His head was turned just a little too far. “What do you mean by that?”

He already knew the answer. Peter could feel it somehow. He was aware of it, just like he’d been aware of everything else, but he was still pretending to humor him. “You never told me your name,” the engineer said. “You never even showed me your face.”

The stranger turned around fully, his neck returning to a more natural position. “Mr. Walter, I can assure you that my face is of no interest to you.”

“Why not?” Peter went on pressing. The stranger’s refusal had only served to pull more curiosity out of him, and he knew it just as well as Peter did.

“A matter of personal necessity, really,” the stranger coolly replied.

“Does this have anything to do with how dangerous this organization of yours is? Will you be marked somehow if I see what you look like?”

“I assure you, Mr. Walter, the coverings I wear are not for my own safety.”

“They aren’t?” Peter mused, inquisitively tilted. “Is it some kind of uniform, then? If I join forces with you, am I going to have to hide my face as well?”

That finally got a laugh out of the stranger, one that was low but still genuine. “Sometimes,” he replied. “If the situation calls for it. I’m afraid this isn’t something circumstantial for me.”

“Then what is it for?”

“To put it simply, if I were to remove these bandages, the experience would be extremely unpleasant for the both of us.”

Peter leveled his gaze, and he felt the stranger meeting his eyes, even past all those impenetrable layers of gauze. “Unpleasant how?” he asked.

The stranger shrugged his arms into the sleeves of his coat and sighed, as if defeated. “There doesn’t seem to be any getting away from it, then,” he said. “I suppose there’s only one real way to make you understand.”

Without warning, the stranger’s fingers delved beneath the bandages over his eye and pulled them aside.

Peter had barely seen anything before he felt every nerve in his body burst into flame. A crippling pain speared through his head, like twin bullets fired point-blank into his eyes. He reeled backward, feeling numb and also buzzing, a thousand electric shocks rattling his system at once. Staring. The stranger had stared at him. Something unknowable. Something beyond his comprehension. Beyond human. An eye. An endless eye, surrounded by indescribable skin. Peter’s skull cracking open from the mere sight of it.

It was over before even a second had passed. Peter was on the floor, staring upward. The stranger was standing over him, Kepler draped across one arm, his free hand clutching at his face where the bandages had been pulled away. His chest was heaving, and his breath hissed through his teeth as if something had just caused him great pain.

“What was that?” Peter murmured, bewildered.

“What happens,” was the stranger’s simple reply. 

The man reached a long arm out to help Peter to his feet, which the engineer gladly accepted. He felt static-electric tremors running all along his skin as his hand made contact with the stranger’s, even through the layers of glove and bandage. He handed Kepler back to his host, and Peter took her into his arms. She stared at the stranger with her clear grey eyes, stretching her head out in his direction and snuffling madly with her quivering nose as if he exuded some fascinating smell.

“You’d be honestly shocked how much that sort of thing has been happening to me lately,” Peter said in a weak attempt at making a joke.

“If you did tell me, I don’t think I would be shocked at all,” the stranger assured him. He didn’t laugh, but there again was that rush of inexplicable warmth. 

Peter stroked Kepler’s silky fur in silence as he watched his peculiar guest fasten the buttons on his coat. “You never did tell me your name,” he pointed out with no prompting.

The stranger didn’t seem startled by the comment at all, and yet he still responded with a flippant  “Oh. Didn’t I?”

“No,” Peter replied. “I don’t believe you did.”

“What makes you think that information will be necessary to know in the near future?”

He already knew. He was humoring Peter. He just wanted to hear his host say it himself. “Well, if we’re going to meet again, it might make things easier if I have something to call you.”

The stranger exhaled, the sound slow and rattling. He didn’t quite sound frustrated, more like an old friend who had heard a joke a few times too many. He turned toward his host, holding his hat by the brim and away from his face. Even without seeing his eyes, Peter felt oddly certain that he was being stared at. “Look at me, Peter,” he said. “What do I appear to be?”

A moment passed quietly while Peter deliberated what to say. In all honesty, he couldn’t begin to describe his transient guest, but he knew that wasn’t the sort of response that the stranger was looking for. “You look like a man to me,” he tentatively answered. “Only without a face.”

The stranger nodded, and Peter had the distinct impression that he was smiling at him. “Then that’s exactly what I am, my friend.”

Peter watched in still silence as the man settled his wide-brimmed hat on top of his head and stepped toward the door. He broke out of his trance just in time to open the door for his guest. “The Man Without A Face?” he said inquisitively. “Is that really all that you call yourself?”

“If you had my level of awareness, you would know it was the truth,” The Man assured him.

“It’s just an odd name to have,” Peter remarked. “A simple one, too.”

“And quite self-explanatory. There’s a reason why I chose it for myself.”

Peter wanted to ask exactly how it was possible for one to go about choosing their own name, but through their conversation he’d come to realize that the being he was speaking to didn’t have the same limitations of thinking that he himself did. There was no longer space for questions, even though The Man Without A Face would likely have answered any that he asked. He’d been generous with his information. But even though he acted quite a lot like he had all the time in the world, they were both acutely aware that Peter didn’t. The scientist stood in the doorway, his hand still resting on the door. “You’re sure I’m going to see you again?” he asked.

“Yes.” And Peter couldn’t imagine any response that could feel more certain.

The Man Without A Face turned and left without another word. Peter watched him go, disappearing into the dimming evening. He reached the end of the walkway before Peter closed the door and returned to the library. He set Kepler down on the fainting couch beside him, and sure enough, not five minutes later, The Jon came scampering in, gushing madly about how the rabbit had gotten lost while he and Rabbit were playing and nearly collapsed from relief when he saw their pet sitting calmly beside his creator. Peter almost could have laughed. It felt inexplicably good to be aware of things. 

Awareness was distressing at the same time, though. He glanced at the clock and saw that Iris and Johona had been gone for nearly three hours. That was halfway through the time it normally took for papers to get processed at Town Hall. That was, provided they worked expediently and didn’t get held up. Peter hoped they wouldn’t.

The knowledge hanging over his head might crush him if he waited too long to share it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the title of this chapter makes sense, doesn't it.  
> I probably should have fallen asleep before this, but I didn't.  
> Where is this all going to lead to? How the hell is he going to explain this to anyone?  
> I don't know. I guess you'll just have to keep reading.  
> See you next chapter.


	32. A Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sad Coldplay is a great way to start this chapter off.  
> I just want to hug all the characters involved in this story. Primarily the main three from whose point of view I most often write. Kahn can go sit in the corner by himself. Not because I dislike the poor man who's only trying his hardest to do his job because his boss is stressed out and being demanding, but only because I don't know him all that well. Hugs are for friends only.  
> Speaking of friends, The Man Without A Face. He's a friend. A friend to us all. You'll never love him like I love him.  
> I'm not even sure what I'm talking about. I think this is just the good day I had and the Coldplay getting to my head. It's pleasant, but I do need to get this author's note on track and put in my usual messages.  
> Thanks @ volatileSoloiste for beta reading and cicada_s and Devin for letting me know I'm not alone in my enjoyment. And thanks to the one user who has a name cooler than mine who left a comment on my last chapter. That was rad of you. Please post about this shitshow on tumblr under the tags "fic: artificial life," "fic: alaout" or you can jam the entire big-ass title into the tags, just so everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. AND do NOT forGET to bLaCkLiSt this fanfiction under the sexpg tag. It's definitely not fun for all ages.  
> Speaking of not fun for all ages, time for WARNINGS. I think I'm gonna go back and fix all my other notes and use that phrase in them.  
> TRIGGER and CONTENT WARNING: strong language, rage at friends, forged government documents, and especially REFERENCES TO ABORTION ATTEMPT. And some SEX. Might help to know there's a bit of SEX in this chapter. We aren't playing with zest anymore.   
> Good luck, kiddos.

 

It was dark when the front door opened again. Almost six, according to how long ago the tall, aged clock in the library had chimed. Peter had gone to the kitchen and started dinner since then. Rabbit and The Jon had followed to watch him work, and The Spine had at some point decided to come join them. It was Rabbit’s hearing receptors that first picked up the activity in the foyer. Her head swiveled to face the source of the noise, her facial mechanisms pulling into a smile. “They’re home!” she exclaimed, excitedly springing to her feet and racing for the door.

Her brothers quickly scrambled after her, both of them outpacing Peter as he got up from his place by the coffee table and followed them. He still didn’t quite have it in him to run yet.

When he caught up to them at last, Iris had already shed her coat, and Jo was in the process of hanging hers up. The automatons had flocked around the both of them, peering over their shoulders and gawking at the infant twins. Peter’s heart warmed from the sight of them. Iris looked up from the twin in her arms and smiled when her eyes met with his. His face mirrored hers. “How did everything go?” he asked.

“As the surprise of the century, it went smoothly,” she replied. “There were a lot of papers to go through, and quite a bit of thorough discussion with maybe a thousand different government professionals, and one minor complication that slowed us down for a few minutes, but everything is in order now, and  _ you _ have just adopted your sons.” She grinned victoriously, handing him the son that looked like her. 

Peter gladly took him into his arms and kissed the side of his fuzzy little head. “What was the complication?” 

“The father of the children not being present, for one thing,” Johona quipped, giving the pale twin to Iris for her to hold while she dug through the canvas bag that hung at her hip. “Plus a spelling error made while printing the birth certificate. But it all got sorted out.” She pulled a manila envelope from her bag and handed it over to Peter, a smirk that was just a little too smug for comfort plastered across her face. 

Peter hesitated before taking it from her. “Alright,” he mumbled. With Lawrence balanced on his arm, he didn’t have the freedom of his hands to open it. He settled for carrying it with him to the kitchen and setting it down on the table. The cast-iron pan full of cut bell peppers had almost started to burn while he hadn’t been paying attention, and he hurriedly stirred it to redistribute the heat. “Were there no questions about my name being put on any of the forms?”

“A few,” Iris said.

“Contrary to what your anxiety might be saying, not everyone in this city knows who you are or what you’ve been up to,” Johona cut in, rephrasing Iris’s reply in a much more blunt fashion. “Combine that with the fact that you haven’t left your house in just shy of eight months, the officials in question weren’t exactly awaiting your arrival.”

Peter scoffed, irritated, but unable to deny the point she was making. “You weren’t the one undergoing a perversion of nature, Jo.”

“Never said it was a bad thing you stayed in, comrade.”

He didn’t respond to that, only went about finishing what he’d prepared with a little help from The Jon. Peter picked up the envelope while they set the table. “This has the certificates in it, right?” he said.

Iris nodded. “It’s all there. All the identification they’ll need for the next few years.”

Hearing that, Peter couldn’t hold back his excitement any longer. He had to see it. It seemed kind of silly that a piece of paper could be such a comforting affirmation to him, but then again, the past eight months of his life seemed incredibly silly in retrospect, especially that day in particular. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he would go about explaining it to Iris and Jo. One step at a time, he supposed. With that, he carefully set his son on Johona’s lap and tore the edge off the envelope. He fished around with his fingertips until he caught the edge of the pristine white government stationery. There were two, and in his excitement, he took them both out at once. He separated them, eagerly looked them both over, and a second later realized that something was horribly wrong.

“Johona, what the hell is this?”

His friend looked up at him, her face melodramatically innocent. “What the hell is what?”

“What the hell?” Rabbit babbled, followed by a prompt “Later, Rabbit,” from Iris.

“The names,” Peter said tersely, turning both documents around for everyone in the room to see. “These are NOT the ones we agreed on.”

Iris looked at the papers and her mouth dropped open in shock. She turned to Johona, sputtering, “B-but... but you... you said it was a minor spelling error!”

“It could be,” the nurse flippantly said, shrugging her shoulders. “You could still pronounce them like the other ones you had picked out. This is just what they look like.”

“That doesn’t make any blasted sense, Johona! I can’t believe you would pull something like this. On a fucking government document, of all things!” He turned the certificates back around toward himself to read them over again, trying to convince himself that he was hallucinating. He wasn’t. Every time he blinked in an attempt to clear his vision, the sight before him was the same. On both papers, written out in neat cursive handwriting, was his own name.  _ Peter Alexander Walter _ , followed up by a  _ II _ on the left, and a  _ III _ on the right.

“But... which one is which?” Iris looked down at the twin she held, and the one sitting with Johona. “And how are we supposed to tell the difference between them? We’re going to get confused. Everyone will.”

Peter, meanwhile, was so furious he was starting to feel lightheaded. He pulled a chair out and sank down into it, slapping a palm to his forehead and slowly dragging it down over his face. “Dear god, Johona. What in the blazes possessed you to... I-I can’t even put into words how much... Ugh! I can’t fucking believe you!”

“Fucking?” the Jon murmured.

“Don’t repeat anything he says right now,” Johona instructed.

“Do not tell my automaton what to do!” Peter snapped.

“Then maybe next time, you’ll think twice before deciding you”ll try to be your own doctor,” his friend countered in the most condescending voice he’d ever heard her use. “And if we’re lucky, you’ll stop calling people cowards in at least the near future.”

Peter balked, staring at Johona with unadulterated rage etched into his face. “Is  _ that _ what this is about?” he demanded, but his anger quickly cooled into spite. “You know what? I’m not even going to bother speaking to you.” He stuffed the certificates back into their envelope and turned his back to her to cement his point before angrily slamming the documents down on the counter.

Iris sighed deeply, gently bouncing one of the twins, who had started to whine and was dangerously close to crying. “Well... if anything, we can still take a moment to figure out which one is which,” she offered. 

“Are you actually going to let Johona win out?” Peter countered.

“Look, I know no better than you how she pulled what she pulled.”

“I told them it was the father’s request, and it wasn’t like he was there to argue,” Johona cut in.

“Alright, so we know how she pulled it,” Iris started over. “It’s on an official document now, and we can’t reverse the fact that it’s been approved by the government.”

“But the papers we made out  _ together _ were just as official.”

‘They weren’t the ones that the mayor’s secretary signed,” Johona interrupted again.

“Would you shut your stupid, petty mouth?” Peter snapped.

“You sure you want to talk to me that way when I’m holding your son?”

Peter immediately swooped down on her and snatched his baby out of her arms, cradling him against his own chest. “Don’t listen to her,” he gently instructed the infant, who had started to squeal his indignance at being handled so roughly. “She wouldn’t dare do anything to you.”

“At least they weren’t born identical,” Iris said, once again trying desperately to ease the mood. “This way we can’t mix them up. We can assign  _ the second _ to one, and  _ the third _ to the other, and that’ll be it.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that both their goddamn names are Peter Alexander.”

“Those are only the names they have on paper. We can always call them something else.”

“Honestly, Iris, your solution is sounding hardly any different from Johona’s.”

The conversation lasted all the way through dinner, as well as the short period of time afterward spent heating up the twins’ nightly serving of milk, which Iris had just picked up fresh from her source that afternoon. As resourceful as she was, Peter wasn’t entirely sure that this name dilemma was a bind that she could get them out of. Johona wasn’t helping much with her intermittent comments. After almost an hour of hopping from one fruitless solution to another, it was finally settled that, even if their official names couldn’t be modified anymore, they could both have their own variants of what they had been given. The pale twin was assigned Peter Alexander Walter II, and the curly-haired one was anointed Peter Alexander Walter III. The assignment was based on Rabbit’s assertion and her brothers’ unanimous agreement that three is more than two and that the darker twin had more hair than his sibling, thus earning him the bigger number. 

It was left up to Iris to decide what they would actually be called. She settled on splitting their name in half, since they were stuck sharing it anyways; one twin would have the first name, the other would have the middle. According to the order of their numbers, Peter II would be called Peter, shortened to Pete as much as possible, and Peter III would be referred to as Alexander, or Alex to put him on par with his brother.

The twins, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care much about their respective names much at all, and fell asleep on their parents shortly after being fed. Johona was left to clean up the dishes to atone for her sins and later followed her two housemates into the library to shuffle through her friend’s stacks while both he and Iris drank tea and ignored her.

Eventually, Peter couldn’t take her silent presence anymore. “Johona, I think you’ve gotten your point across well enough now. I get that what I did was wrong, and now we’re both just as bad as each other. Would you  _ please _ stop hovering over me like a godforsaken poltergeist?”

“Was I hovering? I didn’t realize,” his friend flatly replied. “I’d have thought my feet would have stopped touching the floor.”

“I know you aren’t dense enough to take the term literally,” he quipped. “I want you to stop skulking around. It’s irritating, and you’re only making it more difficult for me to get over how angry I am with you.”

Johona pulled a novel out from its place on the shelves and pounced down, landing heavily on her feet. “Well, when you can come up with something better for me to do, feel free to tell me what that is.” 

Peter straightened up, setting his teacup roughly down on its saucer and turning sharply around to glare at her. “You ruined my sons’ lives!”

“Just because they have stupid names doesn’t mean their lives are ruined,” Johona countered, sitting herself languidly in a chair.

“Stupid?” Peter almost sounded surprised. “They’re the names YOU picked for them!”

“Maybe, but it’s not like I won’t admit they’re stupid.” The nurse cracked open the book in her lap, only half-listening to Peter. 

“You know, I was perfectly ready and willing to apologize to you for making plans behind your back, but retaliating like this is unnecessary on a cosmic level.”

“And that’s the way we live our lives, Walter. We’re all unnecessary without each other.”

“Don’t you dare make this into an abstract metaphor about friendship.” Peter took a long moment to collect himself and calm down his son, who he’d accidentally startled in his outburst. “Speaking of old friends, though, I’ve come to a decision that you both should probably know about.”

Johona didn’t look up from her book, but Iris immediately gave Peter her undivided attention. “What is it?” she asked, her brow pinched with concern.

Peter couldn’t bring himself to say it right away. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for the impact of the truth, letting his gaze fall to the floor. “I’ve decided that I should go to Africa.”

Iris gasped, and the sound of bound paper unceremoniously hitting the floor notified Peter that Johona had finally been broken out of her spiteful trance. Still, he refused to bring his eyes up above the level of his shoes. He was afraid to see the looks on their faces after hearing what they’d heard.

“Peter...” Iris said softly. “Y-you’re not serious.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid I am. According to the ship schedule and reasonable expectations, I’ll be leaving in around two months.”

“B-but.... But you spent so much time.... You worked so hard just to...” Iris was blindly stammering, her shock slowly giving way to righteous anger. “Has Babclock resumed sending you messages? Is he harassing you again? I swear to god, if he is, so help me I will go to Africa myself and show him who’s-”

“Please don’t, Iris,” Peter pleaded, sighing in frustration. “It’s bad enough that they’ve finally forced me into this. I don’t need you to be taken as well.”

“And why shouldn’t I go? Clearly, if they’re still after you, they must be so desperate that they’ll take anyone. Even me.”

“It wasn’t Babclock who convinced me, Iris,” Peter said.

Just like that, Iris’s tirade had been curbed. “What?”

“But if it wasn’t him, then who was it?” Johona asked.

“It was...” For a moment, Peter was tempted to keep the afternoon’s whole surreal interaction hidden. It wouldn’t be too difficult for either of them to believe that his guilt over the extensive casualties from across the Atlantic had finally made him give in to the demands that Taggart had been sending his way for months. Iris had seen him cry over it once before. “Well, I’m no longer in the condition that I once was. Unless they feel the need to undress me, I no longer have anything to hide,” he rambled. “It’s a massacre over there. I remember every word that Kahn said to me. We all know that Taggart’s company wouldn’t have gone to me if they weren’t running out of either options or resources. Possibly both at once.” Then he stopped. A sigh rushed from his lungs. That stranger, their conversation, everything that had to do with him burned far too vividly in Peter’s mind to be so easily glossed over. “That, and... and someone else stepped in to convince me.”

“Who was it?” Iris asked, all traces of indignation gone from her demeanor. 

“I don’t know how I could possibly describe him to you,” Peter mused, trying to conjure up the words. “The most I can really tell you is that he calls himself The Man Without A Face, and that’s exactly what he is.”

Johona raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.  “Alright. So you want to go to Africa because a man without a face told you to?”

“Not just  _ a _ man, Johona,” Peter retorted. “That’s his name. It’s his title, one he chose for himself.”

“So a man with no face who gave himself his own name wants you in Africa.”

“I think we can all agree that this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve had to tell you in recent history.”

The room was silent for an uncomfortable moment. It might have broken afterward, or it might not have. Peter didn’t stay around to find out. He left for the staircase not a minute after he had spoken, leaving both Jo and Iris staring emptily after him.

* * *

Neither of Peter’s housemates went after him when he left the library in an obscure state of distress. Iris thought maybe it was best that they didn’t. If his statements were true, Peter had barely gotten so much as a few waking minutes to himself in the past few days. Perhaps if he were left unbothered for a while, he’d be able to collect himself. Now all Iris could do was wait. 

She finished first what remained of her tea, then Peter’s, before casually bidding Johona goodnight and wandering back to the kitchen to drop the teacups and saucers into the sink. A pot of warm water sat on the stove, steam still rising gently from the top. Apparently someone had come through and warmed another set of bottles for the twins. The maid felt a little rush of warmth for Peter; it was an immense comfort, knowing that even when he was irritated, he still took the needs of their children into consideration. After washing out the cups and placing them on the drying rack alongside the plates that Johona had cleaned, she traveled upstairs.

Out of newly-ingrained habit, Iris stopped by the twins’ bedroom to check on them, possibly to see if Peter was still there. The room was empty, though, save for the two tiny newborns swaddled in their respective cribs. There were some blankets strewn around, evidence that someone had recently been in there tending to them, but it had been a while since they had left. 

Alex was awake, somehow, and was now staring at the ceiling, softly humming a disjointed, nonsensical little song in an effort to get someone’s attention without waking his brother. Iris lifted him out of his crib to gently rock and whisper to him until his humming stopped and his pretty brown eyes fell closed again. It hit her once again just how much looking at him was like looking into a blue-tinted mirror.

When she slipped into Peter’s bedroom at long last, she found her employer- maybe not her employer anymore, since at this point she hardly even knew what to call him- sitting on his bed, slumped over with a book in his lap. His hair was wet, probably having just come out of a bath, and he’d already changed into pajamas. He raised his head when he heard Iris shut the door behind her and when their eyes met, she could see just how tired he felt.

“Is everything alright?” she hesitantly asked.

Peter shook his head, slid a bookmark into the pages of the novel he’d been immersed in and set it on the night table beside the bed. “I’m still annoyed with Jo, and chances are I will be for a while,” he admitted. “But other than that, I’m not vomiting blood or in any kind of crippling pain, so that must be a good sign.”

Iris took his grim humor as an attempt to seem more composed than he really was. She approached the bed and set herself down next to him. “Believe me, I appreciate what she did just as little as you do.”

“It’s not like there’s anything we can do to change it now. That disaster is already down in writing and submitted to the government.”

“We could try to have the certificates rewritten.”

“And what would the point be? Even worse, what if someone asked us to explain why?” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his damp hair. “Let’s face it. Trying to do this over is just too much effort.”

“If that’s the way you feel about it,” Iris acquiesced. She stood up from the bed to wander over to the closet, where some of her nightclothes had become mixed in with Peter’s over the course of many washings of their combined laundry. She partially closed the door behind her while she changed, obscuring her from Peter’s vantage point on the bed. There was a draft in the room that made the hinges creak, and she vaguely recalled Peter in his drugged-out state in the past week mentioning something about the French doors being old and faulty like the windows in the library and them needing to fix them before the weather got truly brutal. She wondered which direction the door was swinging, if maybe Peter could see a small piece of her partially-dressed form. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had, but then again, the first time she hadn’t been nearly this exposed. The thought of it sent a little thrill down her back.

She emerged, and Peter was still in the same place that she’d left him. He’d taken up his book again, and he had it open in his hands, but he wasn’t reading it. He was looking at her instead.

‘Is everything okay?” she asked again.

“Yes, I believe so,” Peter demurely replied. He closed the book and set it down beside him. “I’m just... I’m thinking about a lot.”

“Would you be willing to tell me about it?” When he didn’t give her an answer, she moved to the bed and set herself down at the foot of it, facing him where he leaned back against the headboard. “I don’t care how long it takes, really. I just want to help you however I can.”

Peter wearily laughed a little. “You make it sound as if that’s your duty as my maid.”

“But aren’t I your maid?”

She watched his pale face soften as she spoke. He looked at her for a long, quiet moment, something deep and longing behind the reflection of his eyes. Then he took a breath and spoke. “That visitor I saw today. The Man Without A Face.”

“Is that what he really was?” Iris inquired. She spoke softly, imbuing her words with genuine curiosity. She knew that when she asked questions this way, he understood that she had no intention to deride him. She just wanted to know, hardly any different from what he felt in the midst of an experiment.

“It was what he appeared to be,” Peter replied. “But if I were to be more honest, I can’t be sure at all what he was. He presented himself in that form, but... I can’t even begin to describe it. I knew he wasn’t what he tried to seem.”

“So he was something else, pretending to be human.”

“I don’t know. All I can remember is that the whole time he was with me, something felt... altered.”

“Altered how?” It was as if the more he spoke, the less sense he made. Still, Iris wasn’t about to discount anything he said. Maybe all the pieces would fall together once he’d explained just what it was that he’d seen.

“It was as if he was reaching me, somehow,” Peter began. “I kept feeling these signals from him, like that feeling you get when someone looks at you a certain way and even though they never say a word to you, you know exactly what they mean. I never saw his face. He was covered completely in bandages. But I could always sense how he felt. You of all people know that I’m about as intuitive as a brick, so it couldn’t have been me. He must have been projecting his feelings onto me.”

“Was that how he convinced you to reconsider the arrangement with Mr. Babclock?”

Peter shook his head. “No, not at all. I was aware of myself the whole time. He was never making me feel any certain way, just making me aware of him in a more profound way than most people can. What changed my mind was that he swore to me that if I went and fought Thaddeus, he would ensure that I would come out the victor and that no harm would come to you or the twins.”

“He’s only one man. How can he promise something like that?”

“I don’t think that’s the case with him. He isn’t just a man, Iris. Not like you or me. He’s... He is something beyond the description of any sort of being that I’ve heard of before.”

“Like something out of a Poe story,” Iris murmured, finishing his thought.

“Exactly,” Peter affirmed, nodding.

“But this was only an impression you got from him. That can’t be all there is to say about him.”

“It isn’t,” her ex-employer went on. “He told me things... things it would have been impossible for any ordinary person to know. He claimed that he knew where Kahn was right then, as we were speaking. He gave me instructions, told me exactly how the next few weeks would play out if I followed them. He took Kepler out from under the coffee table like some kind of magician, while I had been sitting in the parlor for a whole hour with her and never realized she was there. And he told me...” 

All of a sudden Peter’s breath had caught in his throat, and he’d stopped speaking. His eyes had gone vacant, and he was staring at his hands, which were now clutching at the bedspread to try and hide the fact that they were shaking. Iris crawled forward towards him and gently wrapped her fingers around his wrist, catching his attention and bringing his gaze back up to meet hers. ‘What did he say to you?” she asked, urging him onward.

Peter blinked his eyes shut for a second, and when they opened, they were glassy. “He told me how the twins had come into being, and why they are the way they are. Why they’re different.” He looked down at their hands again, now that their fingers had somehow become intertwined, and took a shaky breath. “They have two different mothers. One is yours, and the other... the other is Delilah’s.”

Iris’s whole consciousness seemed to stall. For a second, she didn’t understand what Peter was saying to her. None of it made sense. Her children weren’t her own. She hadn’t been the one to bear them, she didn’t have that capacity anymore and she hadn’t for many years. But Alex, little Alex looked so much like she did, and how could that have been possible when she hadn’t ever so much as touched Peter before he’d already been in that condition?

But as far as she knew, Delilah hadn’t either.

A moment passed in which Iris couldn’t seem to make her voice work. When she finally grasped it again, she could only think of one thing to say. “How?”

“Because their conception didn’t adhere to the laws of nature,” Peter haltingly explained, speaking as if he didn’t believe the words himself. “Their genealogy doesn’t make any sense because they weren’t made from a biological impulse. They’re made up of memories and images. And when I first suspected that I was carrying something at all, I was...”

She knew he was reluctant to say it in front of her, but she understood what he meant. “You were still in love with Delilah.”

Peter nodded. His breath hitched again and he swallowed convulsively. “And to think... to think that’s what had happened to me, and still, the first thing I did when I found out it had happened was try to stop it.” His hand drifted down to his abdomen, his fingertips tracing across the line of the fresh, healing scar under his shirt. “All those times I’d had those strange dreams about her... seeing her ghost, hearing her speak to me, saying that I was keeping her alive... I was. Somehow I was. I had a piece of her growing inside me, and... a-and I tried to kill it.” There was no longer any reason to hide it. Tears had started streaming over Peter’s cheeks, far beyond his control. “I tried to destroy the last real connection that I had to her.”

Without hesitation, Iris had her arms wound around his shoulders, pulling him close and letting him bury his face in her hair. “You didn’t know,” she whispered.

“But I still did it,” he choked out, his voice weak and strangled, halfway muffled by her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter if I knew or not. It doesn’t matter if I’d succeeded or not. She was relying on me, and I failed her. I stabbed her in the back.”

“You didn’t,” Iris insisted. She pulled back just far enough to look Peter in the eyes, cupping her hand around the edge of his face. “You didn’t know it was her. You couldn’t have known. You were scared, and you didn’t understand what was happening to you.”

Peter blinked away some of the moisture that flooded his eyes. “But does that make it right?”

“It makes it necessary,” she clarified, wiping the tear stains from his face with her thumb. “You did what you felt you had to.”

For the longest time, Peter didn’t say another word. He stared at her, looking shocked and relieved and somehow liberated, but a look could only say so much, and what must have been an eternity went by, all the while Iris worrying, almost entirely sure that Peter hadn’t believed a word she had said. It wasn’t until he closed his eyes, sniffed and nuzzled his face against her palm that she let herself relax. Peter layered his hand over hers and gently lowered his head to kiss her wrist. “I love you,” he whispered.

Iris felt her heart melt in her chest. “I love you, too,” she responded.

Moments between them passed in silence. Iris leaned forward and let her forehead come to rest against Peter’s. His breath was warm on her skin, and she felt his mouth tentatively brush against hers. Softly, she tried to kiss away the guilt that plagued him. His wet eyelashes fluttered against her cheek, and she moved to press her lips delicately to his tear-stained face, first under one eye, then the other. 

Peter’s eyes were still closed when she backed away from him, just far enough to see his face. He opened them slowly, his breath still shuddering a little, and turned his gaze up to meet hers. He seemed transfixed, his attention never leaving her for what must have been years, until his eyes finally slid a little ways to the side and he let out a startled gasp. In all she had been trying to do, Iris had never realized that the sleeve of her sleeping shift had slipped down from her shoulder.

Iris glanced down at herself, surprised at just how much of her chest had been exposed. She turned her eyes back to Peter, startled, and he met her with the same expression. They were both begging for answers from one another, silently asking the same thing:  _ What the hell are we doing? _

Out of some random compulsion, Peter reached out and tugged her sleeve up her arm, putting it back into place. He sighed nervously, staring at his handiwork for a second, before looking back at her face. “I-I’m sorry, I... I didn’t realize,” he stammered.

He’d done it out of politeness. Peter stirred in front of her, his face flushed and a deep, searching need in his eyes, and she became aware that his fingertips had never left her shoulder, but were ghosting delicately over her arm. His touch skirted her wrist, then her warm, worn hand where it stood upon the mattress between her knees. The back of his wrist nudged accidentally against her thigh, sending a little shudder of temptation through her. Without thinking, she took the hem of her shift and pulled it over her head.

The loose fabric hit the mattress behind her, and she shivered, the chill night air suddenly washing over her bare skin. For a second, she almost wished she hadn’t done it, or at least had done it a little slower, but that was before she saw the look on Peter’s face. He was burning blue, blood rushing under his skin like a raging current. His eyes wandered over her body, taking in everything that there was to see; she was stripped to the waist, nothing left on her but a pair of plain cotton drawers that just barely passed her knees. Half of the horrific scars that spanned her abdomen were exposed. She remembered that he hadn’t been afraid of them last time, and he wasn’t afraid of them now, either.

Peter shifted forward and let one hand come to rest on the gentle dip of her waist, pulling her close to him. His other hand explored over her body, tracing the lines of her scars, gazing down at the complex web of damaged tissue with avid fascination. Slowly his eyes drifted back up to her face. She could see the emotions that resided there, a complex cocktail of curiosity and need and something else, a soft sort of affection that Iris hadn’t seen in years. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and her mind was consumed by the exact same thought. Still, he hesitated. “Are you sure that you want this?” he asked.

Of course she wanted it. She had for years. Every fiber of her being was singing with a desperate need for more of him, his kisses, his touch and everything else that until now he hadn’t dared to offer to her. She wanted him so badly; her anticipation and desire were so great that she could hardly breathe in that moment. It was a feeling impossible to phrase. The best she could do was respond to him with an elated, whispered “Yes.”

The tension in the room broke like a violin string. Peter’s arms wound around her, his dextrous hands running over her back, and his lips locked feverishly with hers. Iris tilted her head back and sighed with contentment, caving in to him, pressing her body closer, her skin starving for the feeling of his. Her hands found the collar of his shirt, and she was blindly pulling at the buttons, the fastenings coming apart in her hands until the garment hung loosely off of his shoulders. She was whirled around and then laid on her back, sinking back into the pillows, and Peter was hovering over her, his exposed chest now flushed blue. He shrugged his shirt off and threw it aside, moving with delicious slowness and letting Iris watch, before diving back in and mercilessly attacking her body with kisses. 

Iris arched her back against the pillows and let a faint, fluttering moan slip from her lungs. His lips and hands were all over her; his mouth caressed her neck and shoulders, his palms ghosted across her sides, exploring her body until they eventually found her breasts. She molded to his hands like clay as he gently kneaded her soft flesh, grazing his thumbs across her hardened nipples. He lowered his head to playfully nip and suck at one of them, while his hand wandered lower, sliding between her legs to find the sensitive area that was growing steadily hotter as he touched her. Iris gasped in pleasure, trailing her nails across his back, wordlessly begging for more.

At last she gained the courage to push back. She straightened herself out and sat up in Peter’s lap, pulling his body closer against hers, making him shudder and his eyes widen in surprise. Gravity ground her hips against his, and immediately she felt that he was aroused. He stared at her, looking startled by her sudden bravado, but his hands still remained firmly fixed on her body, unwilling to leave. She wasted no time in taking his face in her hands and kissing him again, this time parting her lips and letting her tongue probe experimentally at his mouth. He responded in turn, and they went on for a while, tasting, investigating and letting what they found fill in the gaps in their extensive studies of one another. 

Iris’s chest felt so constricted by excitement that she had to draw back for a second to breathe. Peter was left gasping as she did, a string of saliva snapping between them as they suddenly parted. Iris gazed at him as she tried to catch her breath. He still looked startled, almost wonderstruck, and the thorough dusting of blue across his skin and the stiffness pressing up against her from behind layers of fabric confirmed exactly how he felt. She let her hand drift down from his shoulder and slide over his body until she found the dry, raised line of the incision that had split his skin barely three days prior. Her fingertips brushed delicately across it, and Peter shivered, but his face showed no indication of pain. “You’ve healed so fast,” she said.

He smiled at her. “I have you to thank for that.”

Iris felt her face growing even hotter than it already was, and she coquettishly cast her eyes away from him and broke down into a fit of uncontrolled giggles. Here she was, half-naked and Peter’s arms firmly fixed around her. Her body was there, but her mind was still convinced that it wasn’t, that none of it was real. It couldn’t be. It was far too good.

“I’m serious,” Peter insisted, seeming to take her reaction as a dismissal of what he must have thought was a fact. And then, again, he said it out of nowhere, and it was just as much a shock to her as it had been the first time. “I love you.”

Iris’s giggles finally faded, and her breath returned to her, coming back in a long, quivering sigh. Her hands wandered over his hips, hesitant to go any farther. “You don’t mind that you’re not my first?”

He looked at her quizzically, his smile faltering, but his eyes still shimmering with the same genuine happiness. “Why the hell should I?” he replied.

Such joy surged up in Iris’s chest that she felt like she would burst. The feeling pushed her forward again and came spilling forth from her, dripping from her lips where they met with Peter’s. She left a trail of it along with her kisses as they wandered away from his mouth and toward the pale, pulsing flesh of his throat. She delved into the small, soft hollow of skin behind Peter’s jaw, latching onto it with her teeth and sucking at him until she heard him moaning softly, muffled by her hair. Finally she let her hands slide past the waistband of his pants and reach for his rigid length. Her fingers closed around it, giving it a sensual squeeze. Peter’s head fell back and his voice pitched higher, rising up into a short, sharp cry of pleasure. His hips bucked involuntarily up against hers, and she knew that if she pushed him any farther, he would surely break. One last time, she looked him in the face and asked, “Do you want to go through with this, Peter?”

His hands grasping at her back answered the question well enough, but still he responded. “God, yes.”

“You’d let me...”

“I would,” he insisted. When he met her eyes again, she knew that he meant it.

The rest of their clothes were shed in a matter of seconds, and then they were entangled on top of the sheets, locked in a mindless progression of motion, sensation, whispered words and delicate, keening sounds of ecstasy. Peter was hovering over her again, mapping out every last detail of her skin with his lips, one hand once again having found its way to the soft, warm slit between her legs, his fingertips stroking and teasing her until she was dripping. 

Iris waited for him to push his way into her. That was the way it was supposed to go, and it was what she’d come to expect from encounters like this. It came as a total shock to her when Peter’s scattered kisses began wandering lower, making a path of abstract stepping stones down the side of her neck, across her chest and the cobweb of scars on her stomach. She felt his cheek on her inner thigh, his hands at her hips, and she was about to ask him what he was doing when she felt something just as slimy and wet as she was delve into her, sending a crackle of ecstasy through her whole body. Her head tossed back against the pillows and a long, breathless moan ejected itself from her lungs.

Peter didn’t stop there. His lips covered the opening of her vulva, his tongue probing at its slick folds, making Iris squirm. Her hand reflexively went down and tangled into his hair, pushing him down onto her as her voice incoherently pleaded for more. 

He didn’t hesitate, pressing his tongue a little deeper before moving out again and upwards. Another second of searching, and he hit a spot that made Iris feel like her insides were melting. She looked down just as he glanced upward, the both of them a flushed, sweating mess, and he must have known what he’d done, because he did it again with the exact same result. Iris was absolutely baffled; she thought no one knew of that spot but herself. Peter must have had some considerable instruction in human anatomy, because he seemed to know bodies better than any man she had ever met. He went on teasing the small, hardened nub of her clit between his teeth until Iris’s legs were shaking from a handful of little deaths hitting her one after another and she had to fight not to clamp her thighs down on Peter’s head to keep him there forever.

“P-please, just... just do it,” she begged.

Peter raised his head, panting, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hm?”

She stared into his eyes, still panting from her last orgasm. “Take me.”

The scientist laughed at his own obliviousness, and so did she. They were still laughing when he collapsed on top of her, their hips rocking together, his hand once again probing at the hot, slippery slit between her things. One finger slid into her, then a second, gently opening her up, and their laughter gave way to whispers and moans as he eased himself in. Her hips bucked up against him, her legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him in deeper as the two of them fell into a rhythm. He pulsed inside her, his breath quickening and his impassioned murmurs pitched higher as he worked his way up to a climax. 

Halfway there, Iris thrust her body forward, rolling Peter over onto his back. She straddled him and let gravity do the rest, pushing her down onto him, making him gasp and suddenly shout out her name. Her muscles tightened around his cock and her hips rolled over his, working him over as her hands clutched at his chest and she panted from the effort. His body convulsed underneath her, thrusting upward as he clung to her hips and setting off sparks in her brain with every move he made.

He came with a last, desperate cry of pleasure. Iris felt the white-hot exhilaration of one last climax scatter over her nerves as he gushed into her, her body clenching around his cock as if it had a will of its own and it wanted to drain him of every last drop that he had. The end of it left them both breathless, staring at one another from a small distance, their vision blurred at the edges, hazy and filtered with rose.

Slowly, Iris eased herself off of him. She lowered her body down next to Peter’s. Everything about her felt limp and exhausted and  _ full _ , almost alarmingly so. Peter reacted to her automatically, his long limbs tangling around her small body, wrapping her up in a cocoon of warmth. She turned her head to look at him. Peter looked drowsy, half-asleep, his breath coming slow but heavy. His fingertips stroked over her skin, as if he were still trying to memorize her. 

Iris didn’t think she’d ever seen Peter so open and vulnerable before. When his eyes finally opened enough to look at her, she asked him, “What is it?”

In a soft, breathless whisper, he said, “It was never like this before.”

She cuddled him closer, nuzzling his head against her shoulder. “It wasn’t?”

“I was always drunk,” Peter murmured. “Never remembered. Never felt anything. It was all empty.”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. He’d spent an age alone. Faces without names and fucking without memories. Leaving after, waking up alone. Not this. Never this.

“I’m right here,” she whispered to him.

“I know,” he whispered back.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please don’t.”

They stayed like that, intertwined under the sheets, surrounded by a warm and delirious fog. The world around them didn’t exist. There was only this: this house, this room, these blankets and Peter’s arms around her, legs tangled with hers. He was with her at last.

“Peter?” she mumbled, not knowing if he’d answer.

“Hm?” he hummed sleepily, nuzzling his head up under her chin.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”

He laughed, his breath ghosting across her skin. “Maybe someday I will.”

“I love you.”

He said it back to her, and Iris dozed off not a second later.

* * *

Peter woke up to the sound of an infant’s cries echoing down the hallway. It was a noise to which he was quickly becoming accustomed.

Next to him, Iris stirred and raised her head from the pillows. He felt her starting to shuffle around, pushing the covers aside to get out of bed and tend to whichever of their sons had started crying this time. Peter sat up and reached out to her, his hand finding her arm. She paused and looked back at him, the shape of her dimly outlined by moonlight.

“I’ll take care of it,” Peter assured her.

Iris scooted back and laid down next to him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. You did it last time.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, promising her he would return soon. He watched Iris close her eyes, then quickly went about retrieving his pajamas from where they had been scattered at the foot of the bed and putting them back on. He had to stumble around blindly for a moment before he found a candle to light. Out of the few things that he missed, he had never imagined that glowing would be one of them.

He didn’t bother glancing at the clock before stepping out of the room. Judging by the fact that the moon was still out and shining so energetically, it was definitely some ungodly time between morning and night during which no sane person should have been awake. The adult definition of sanity, as Peter had come to know all too well, did not apply in any way to newborn babies. As Peter staggered down the short stretch of hallway to the twins’ new bedroom, the crying grew progressively louder.

And then it stopped.

Peter froze for half a second. The silence took a moment to process in his sleep-fogged brain. His senses suddenly awakened, and he felt the cold weight of panic settling in his core. He wondered briefly if Johona had gone in to see them before he had, but that couldn’t have been the case. He quickened his pace and just about ran to the twins’ room. 

He rushed through the doorway and stopped dead in his tracks. There was someone in the room, just as he had predicted, but it was no one that he could have imagined would be there right then. A pale, glowing figure loomed over one of the cribs, its long, translucent hair tumbling over its shoulders and past the edge of the crib- Peter II’s, he realized. He could hear his infant son softly humming and babbling to the ghastly being that hovered over him. Two slender arms reached down into the crib, and little Pete cooed as they lifted him up and cradled him, blankets and all.

At long last, Peter managed to swallow his fear and speak up. “How did you get in here?” he harshly asked, brandishing the candle in front of him like a sword.

The figure stilled for a second, tensing up before turning around. Peter recognized her instantly. Delilah held on to his son, cuddling him close to her chest as if she felt a need to protect him.

He froze, and for what felt like an eternity, the two of them remained stock-still, staring at one another. Delilah looked like she had been expecting to see Peter just as much as Peter had been expecting to see her. Time passed, and both their attitudes softened. “What are you doing here?” Peter gently asked her.

Delilah didn’t give him an answer. She simply looked down at the baby in her arms. Pete made another soft, lilting noise of contentment. His pudgy little hand reached up from the blankets to grasp at Delilah’s spectral hair. A look of immense sadness crossed her face, and she turned her head to gaze at Peter. There was something like desperation in her eyes, but it wasn’t quite that. It was as if there was something that she deeply wanted, practically needed, but in spite of it all knew she could never have.

Peter calmly approached her. Up close, he could see the shimmer of luminescent teal brimming in her eyes, threatening to spill over. Delilah had rarely cried in her lifetime, and yet almost every time that Peter had seen her ghost, she had been like this. He looked down at the tiny baby nestled in her arms. He seemed oddly comfortable with being held by a ghost. He must have recognized his mother’s face when he saw her.

A stab of grief lanced through Peter’s heart. Suddenly he understood. Delilah’s apparition was biting at her lips, the way she always had when she’d been trying to keep her emotions in check. Her shoulders shuddered. She made no sound, but he could hear her sobbing in his head. Glowing droplets spilled freely over her pallid cheeks. Her son loved her. She knew he did, but she could never be a part of his life. It was too late for that now.

Reluctantly, Delilah extended her arms toward her old friend, offering their son back to him. Just as reluctantly, he took him from her. She let her hands follow him, her cold touch gently stroking over his soft, downy hair. She cupped his round, chubby cheek in her hand for a moment, gazing down at him with more love in her eyes than Peter had ever seen from her in all their years together. She leaned down and pressed her lips to her son’s forehead before finally letting him go. Peter II whimpered and wriggled in his father’s arms as if he didn’t want her to leave him. But she had to. They all knew it. 

Delilah looked up at her old friend, and Peter wished he had the right words to say to her. Nothing would come to mind. All he could think of was that look of unknowable sadness on her face, how slow and painstaking her movements were, like she was forcing herself to go through with them. She looked into his eyes, blinked her tears away for just a moment and softly said, “Remember. Take good care of him for me.”

She backed away toward the window, and with a rush of cold air, she disappeared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get it? Because by any other name, a rose would smell just as sweet?  
> That didn't even get into the fact that this was a fuck chapter.  
> You better be crying right now, because I sure was when I wrote the last scene of this chapter.   
> You aren't? You're a soulless bastard.  
> Have fun having no soul.  
> See you next chapter.


	33. A Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are.  
> This is it. This is the last chapter. The song of the evening is Black Eyes by David Wirsig, played over and over again in an attempt to make me feel something. I wish I hadn't held out on posting new chapters for an entire month this summer. I wish I could have done this sooner, or on a better night than this. But I just moved back into my dorm, and classes start in two days, so if I don't do this now, I don't know if I ever will.  
> So here is the final chapter. I did my best. I hope you all know I did my best, even if my best was weird and fucked up with plot twists that are disconnected, descriptive language that is occasionally repetitive and artistic metaphors that don't make any sense. And the fact that I made an entire story about a man who gets pregnant with both his dead friend's and his maid's sons, which I still can't get over or calmly be aware of.   
> Because I did that. I fucking did that.  
> I'm in a different place than where I was when I started this story. The fanfiction business has been slow these days. I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually stop writing altogether. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. If any of you have solutions, go on and tell me. David Wirsig isn't bringing much light to my life right now.  
> Other than me being stupid and emotional as usual, thanks for sitting through thirty three chapters of this garbage with me. I deeply appreciate it. I'm the world's greatest whore for attention, whatever I think will get it for me. This route obviously didn't work. I really don't know what I'm still doing here.  
> So, if anyone wants to enlighten the band of this story's existence and show them just how viscerally I've ripped apart the foundation of their life's work, go on ahead. I'm not feeling up to stopping anyone right now. Or you can not do that, because who even cares that much?  
> I'm not bothering with plugs this time, since no one uses them and no one has ever used them. Instead, I'll take up space thanking everyone who has been involved in the production of this atrocity. All the friends who showed even the most remote interest in the concept, all my beta readers, all the friends who kept up with the story and told me it didn't suck. You've been great. I really needed some kind of catharsis to prove that I'm not just a sick fuck and maybe there really is something interesting to the genre of mpreg, as niche a genre as it is.  
> And hey, as Joseph Fink would say, thanks.

 

It was March. The morning air was cool and bitingly fresh. The chill of winter had been slowly wearing off since the beginning of the month, but this early in the day, the temperature was hardly any different from what it had been since the first frost of the year.

Peter stood at the end of the pier while he watched crate after crate being loaded by burly, sunburnt dock workers into the side of the hulking metal ship that was scheduled to depart within the hour. The massive plywood boxes had been brought in trailers to the harbor at dawn, and it had taken hours for the whole load to be moved onto the vessel. Peter had tried to help, but the ship’s captain, a weathered, wizened old man with a rather tightly wound disposition, refused to let him near the cargo, disregarding the fact that it was his property that was being handled. He supposed that he couldn’t blame them. They must have assumed the materials the crates contained weren’t as explicitly personal to him as the clothes in his luggage, although they were personal all the same. 

“W-why aren’t they lettin’ you h-hel-help with your giraffe, Pappy?” Rabbit asked. The automaton crept up behind him, standing at his shoulder and watching with him as the crates were hefted into the cargo hold.

“Something about insurance policies,” Peter mumbled. “Hopefully something I won’t have to explain to you for a while.”

“Hmmmm.” Rabbit’s gears clicked thoughtfully. They were both quiet for a moment, then his creation spoke up again. “Are we g-g-gonna be g-gone a long time?”

Peter felt a tug of longing in his heart. Homesickness was hitting him before he’d even left the dock. The engineer turned to face his invention, who stared back at him with a set of mismatched eyes. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get this done quickly,” he said. “When it’s over, we’ll be going straight back home. I don’t want to spend a day longer overseas than I have to.”

“Good,” Rabbit mumbled, turning his face away again to watch the ships floating in the harbor.

His face. He had one of those now, and that wasn’t the only thing that had changed about him. 

Arthur Kahn had kindly provided Peter the funds to purchase more metal, part of which he had sculpted into sturdy copper plating to cover up his first creation’s internal machinery. It would hold well enough, he figured. At least until their adventures in Africa were over and he could outfit his creation with something a little more suitable. The rest, though, had been a little less than intentional.

Iris thankfully hadn’t asked many questions when Peter had emerged from the lab with his coat and hands smeared with far more oil than usual. She hadn’t heard all the noise. He’d been halfway into a panic attack as he choked out explanations to his two other creations as to why their sister wouldn’t be joining them upstairs for at least another day. He kept all the gory details of his meltdown to himself. It wasn’t until later, when Iris was patching up the deep cuts in his hands from broken glass and twisted metal, that he finally confessed that building Rabbit as she was had been a mistake and some adjustments had to be made.

Rabbit seemed happy enough in his new form, Peter rationalized. The damage to his core had caused him some minor amnesia. He’d never once wondered why Peter didn’t call him his “girl” anymore or called himself the “big sister” to his mechanical brothers. He had never even asked why his eyes were different colors now. Peter would forever be reluctant to tell him that he’d accidentally shattered his original one in the midst of an emotional fit. 

Perhaps it was better this way, he pondered; since the accident, his eldest creation hadn’t said a single word about the origin of his two human brothers. If Peter were lucky enough, Rabbit might not remember his inventor’s ordeal of the past year at all.

“Hey, P-Pappy?”

The regret that twisted around Peter’s brain stem loosened its hold. At least that affectionate little nickname hadn’t been lost along with everything else. “Yes?”

“W-when me an’ my b-br-brothers go off to this... this... Africa place with you, what kinds’a th-things are we g-g-g-gonna see?”

Peter thought for a moment, trying to recollect all the updates that Kahn had transferred to him over telegraph as he made his way back to San Diego from New York. Mine collapses. Investors pulling out. Political involvement. National troops being sent in for reinforcement. One hundred and twenty-seven more people dead. “I don’t know,” he replied in defeat. “I can’t imagine that much of it is going to be good. But I promise, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that you and your brothers get home safe.”

“Th-thass’ good,” Rabbit said, giving his creator a cheery smile before turning around and scampering back up the dock toward where his brothers were waiting. “Didya hear that? Pappy’s gonna m-ma-make sure we get home safe!”

“But how’s he gonna do that?” Hatchworth cried out in the stilted, tinny voice that Peter had come to recognize as that of his latest creation. “There’s three of us going over and just one of him!”

“He’ll f-find a way,” Rabbit declared with confidence. “Pappy can do anything.”

The bots went on chattering amongst themselves while he stared out over the ocean. He chewed his lip, biting down harder and harder until he tasted blood. He didn’t know what kind of logic led his creations to have so much faith in him. He didn’t deserve that admiration, least of all from Rabbit. He knew the gravity of the mistakes that he’d made. This felt like it was destined to be the greatest of them all.

Not one of them over five months old, and he was dragging them into a war zone.

They weren’t ready for something like this. Kahn hadn’t understood that, though, and he assumed that neither did Taggart. All that they saw were a handful of sturdy machines that could follow orders. Now that the Dandy Candy corporation had finally gotten him to bend, they had no reservations about breaking him. He supposed he deserved it, after how harshly he had spoken to their commander in chief.

He’d started building Hatchworth when a request was replaced for more automatons to be built. He’d made his design based on those he’d made for the automatons that came before him, and that had gotten swiftly rejected when Kahn told him that even if that model were as stalwart as Peter promised it would be, it would be far too costly and time-consuming to make multiples. So he’d gone through with building him after he had submitted a simplified design for the company to mass-produce.

Hatchworth had come out to be just as smart and loyal as Peter had been hoping he would be. The fresh supply of metal from Taggart’s funding did nicely to make him strong and sturdy. He’d fare nicely on the battlefield, provided his six-week-old blue-matter brain could hold up under the stress of it. His latest creation had been conscious for hardly more than a month, but he would still hold up better in the face of conflict than The Jon would.

Little sharp particles of guilt settled in the chambers of Peter’s heart as he once again remembered the whole reason he’d gone through with building Hatchworth in the first place. Taggart had wanted all three of Peter’s original creations to be shipped overseas to fight. It had taken him days of pleading and bargaining to convince him to let The Jon stay behind. Once his youngest creation, Peter had known practically from the day he had awoken that The Jon would be far too frail, playful and shy to be placed into any kind of fight. His willowy, decorative form wouldn’t last a minute in the heat of battle. The engineer couldn’t count all the times he’d imagined horrible visions of seeing The Jon crushed into a lump of warped brass under the feet of a mechanical beast. The day he’d broken down in tears when he saw Rabbit swat a spider that had snuck into the house, Peter conclusively knew that his third invention wouldn’t be able to survive the scene that was waiting for him in Africa. Yet Taggart insisted that he have three creations at his disposal. So that was what he would get.

“Peter!” The Spine’s distinctive voice called out to him from their pile of luggage further up the pier.

The engineer was finally convinced to stop staring out at the harbor, worrying himself sick with his past regrets and the disastrous possibilities of the future. He backed away from the railing that let him lean out over the water and turned around, starting back toward where his creations waited for him atop their packaged belongings.

The Spine seemed relieved to have gotten his attention, his black lips curved up in a welcoming smile. As he came closer, though, the silver automaton’s expression fell a bit. “You look sad,” he said.

“I’m not,” Peter said, although that was hardly true. “I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

“Are you afraid of going over the water?”

“No. I’m afraid of what’s going to be waiting for us on the other side of it.”

The Spine turned his head to look out over the vast, rippling expanse of the Pacific. “I’m a little bit afraid, too,” he said. “There’s so much of it. The ocean goes so far, I can’t see the end of it.”

“Once we get out into the middle of it, you won’t be able to see anything for miles,” Peter told him. “It isn’t as frightening as it sounds, though. Really, it’ll be quite peaceful.”

“Okay.” The Spine pretended to agree with him, although the worried look on his face said otherwise. 

Peter set his hand on his automaton’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, realizing a second too late, that his creation couldn’t feel it. Still, he felt that if he looked into his eyes with enough sincerity it would get the point across. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be taking care of the three of you.”

Steam hissed through The Spine’s vents, sounding like a sigh, and he nodded.

“We’re going to have other people fighting alongside us as well,” Peter went on assuring him. “Your brothers know about them, too.”

“Hatchworth doesn’t understand what we’re doing,” his creation said without warning. “He doesn’t realize how far away from home we’ll be.”

Again, a stab of guilt in Peter’s chest. “None of us do, really. I haven’t ever been this far from California either.”

The Spine seemed surprised. “You haven’t?”

“No,” Peter replied, shaking his head. “New York is the furthest I’ve ever gone, and that isn’t even going outside of the country. This is going to be something wholly different.”

“But I thought you’d been a lot more places than my brothers and I have been.”

“I have. But in the greater scheme of things, I’ve hardly been anywhere.”

Rabbit pulled The Spine aside then, for some reason or another, and Peter returned to gazing off into the distance. The crates were nearly all in place. Their luggage wouldn’t be far behind, and then they would be boarding along with it. He could still hardly bear to think about it. Only three months before, he’d thought he had finally worked out some kind of peace in his life. He’d been happy then. For a few short days, he’d been overjoyed just with the fact of being alive. That wasn’t to be the state of his life, though. The way things were going, he figured, chances were that it never would be that benign again.

Behind him, where the planked expanse of the pier met the city streets that already hummed with activity so early in the day, he heard three new sets of footsteps approaching, accompanied by the shrill squeak of tin wheels as they rattled their way across the uneven paving of wooden boards. He turned around to see The Jon and Johona, a rickety and fully loaded luggage cart shared between them, with Iris close behind, chasing after them. Two bundles of felt and knitting were balanced on both of her arms, bouncing gently as she approached.

“That’s the last of it,” she said, sounding almost triumphant. One of the bundles in her arms squealed, and a plump little arm emerged, wrapped up in a felted sleeve and capped with a tiny hand-knitted mitten. Iris startled at the sound and angled Alex to face her. “What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

“Here, let me see him,” Peter asked, reaching out to take his son from her. Iris gladly obliged, now able to put a little more focus into rocking Pete to keep him calm. Both twins had been unusually fussy that day. It was as if they both knew that something was amiss.

“Do you think they realize what’s going on?” Iris asked. Apparently both she and Peter were on the same page.

“They can’t very well speak to us yet,” he replied. “If they do, there’s no way that they could tell us.”

Alex looked up at him, his deep brown eyes fixated on his father’s face. In the few months that had passed since their birth, the blue matter’s effects on the twins had been steadily wearing off. Their ghostly pallor had faded gradually into more normal skin tones. Pete’s snow-white skin had warmed up to a soft peach color, while Alex’s slightly bluer shade had shifted to the color of coffee with cream, a handful of shades lighter than his mother. Both of them still had a distinctly bluish cast to their hair, and every now and then someone would find a bright blue streak or two still lingering. Alex’s was growing in considerably faster than his brother’s, which Iris said was something that ran in her family.

“What’s wrong, little one?” Peter softly asked the infant in his arms. “Are you upset about something?” 

He wasn’t expecting an answer, but little Alex gave him one anyway. The baby squeaked again, reaching out toward Peter, his face scrunching up into the expression that always preceded a crying fit. Peter sighed and let his son wrap his tiny fingers around his thumb. He cuddled Alex up against his shoulder and bounced him gently. He smelled the top of his baby’s head, which now would be a terrible indulgence, just another thing to rip mercilessly at his heartstrings when the gangplanks were finally lifted behind him. Since the first day he’d held the twins in his arms, he’d been addicted to their smell. They both had their own distinct scent, neither of which Peter could describe. Another naturally-evolved mechanism to bond parents and offspring, Johona said. At the moment, though, it was another nail in the coffin of Peter’s resolve.

“I know, sweet pea,” he said, punctuating with a kiss on his son’s forehead. “I don’t want me to leave either.”

Things were quiet for one blessed moment, save for Alex’s soft whimpering as he fought his compulsion to cry. Peter himself wasn’t far off. When his son finally quieted down, he let him down from his shoulder and cradled him in his arms, looking down at his peaceful little face. He traced the pad of his thumb across the baby’s chubby cheek. “You know, a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about doing this.”

“A year ago you were a different person,” Iris said.

“I think all of us were,” Johona chimed in after she’d added the last load of luggage to the pile on the pier. “And some others of us weren’t people at all yet.”

Peter II whined out loud as if to nominate himself for that category. Or maybe he did it because he knew his father would be gone in less than an hour. Peter found the former concept funnier to think about. The latter just made him sad.

Iris gladly switched off twins with Peter. It seemed that he was the only thing that could calm either one of them. Peter briefly considered that maybe they still had remnants of blue matter embedded in their little brains, whispering secrets to them that they wouldn’t understand if anyone else tried to share them. Peter II was already past the point of weak sobbing, tears staining his face. Peter wiped them away with the edge of his knitted blanket. “It’s okay, bluebell,” he gently said to his son. “I’ll be back before you know it. You’ll hardly even realize I’m gone.”

That, of course, did nothing to stop little Pete’s tears. The engineer went on with the same treatment he’d used for his other son, cuddling him up to his shoulder and bouncing him gently. The infant only went on crying, his tiny mittens reaching desperately for his father’s face.

Rabbit approached them, the other two automatons following close behind him. “Hey, P-Pappy, why are my brothers bein’ s-s-s-so loud?”

“I’m not sure,” Peter admitted. “Maybe they know what’s going to happen.”

The Spine looked at him, a knowing trepidation in his eyes fitting for someone far beyond his age. Peter met his gaze with the exact same look. In that same moment, the loud, baritone blast of the ship’s foghorn split the damp air of the overcast morning. “We’re running out of time,” The Spine said, glancing back at the gangplank. There was a handful of people starting to board now. 

At long last, Peter II’s pitiful sobbing quieted down. Peter patted his son’s back and kissed the side of his head. Again, that indescribable smell. Again, more knives in his heart as he reluctantly separated Pete from himself and handed him off to Johona, who held and cradled the baby with just as much care as Peter would have used himself. The crowds on the dock were quickly thinning out as they loaded themselves onto the ship. The automatons had started relegating who would be carrying what. Each of them was bogged down with some amount of baggage. They looked expectantly at their creator, waiting for him to join them in their quest. He was the sole reason that any of them were going, after all.

“Well,” Peter said, desperately trying to speak over the tightness in his throat. “I guess this is goodbye.”

Iris met his eyes, blinking more than usual to keep her own emotions at bay. “Come back safely, alright?” she admonished him. “I don’t care nearly as much about how soon as I do about that.”

In some vague recess of his memory, he recalled The Man Without A Face. “I promise I will.”

She didn’t seem to believe him, but she smiled anyway and took a step back, as if that would make their parting any easier. Still, it felt there was something missing. Did it not occur to her the way it did to Peter? Or perhaps it did, and there were all kinds of unimportant things that kept it from rising to the surface. No matter. This would be the last he saw of her for a long time, and if anyone chose to make any thickheaded comments, they would be set straight some way or another.

Peter stepped forward, swept Iris up into his arms and kissed her.

In that one small moment, it seemed that everything was okay. The noise of the people around them was distant and indistinct. With his eyes closed, it was as if the hulking ship at the end of the dock didn’t exist. Nothing else was important, only this and all the promises that Peter fully intended to keep. 

He would survive. He would come back. He would marry her, and from then on they could live as a proper family. 

Johona coughed. Hatchworth’s gears hummed impatiently. Rabbit called out to him, throwing any sense of tact to the wind. “Pappy, we’re g-gonna be l-la-late!”

Peter held up a hand in his general direction, cutting him short and requesting one second more. He separated from Iris slowly, and they gazed into each other’s eyes, seeing nothing but sincerity there. 

“Good luck,” she said.

“I love you,” he replied.

“I love you, too.” She stepped away from him again.

“I’ll write to you as soon as I arrive at port.”

And that was the end of it. Peter backed away and gathered the rest of the luggage that his attending automatons hadn’t already claimed. He struggled not to look back as he dragged his belongings with him up the gangplank and through the hallways of the ship. He could imagine them well enough: Jo cradling his son who had already started to cry again, The Jon gazing off into the distance as his brothers board the ship and wondering why he couldn’t join them, Iris closely watching him until he completely disappeared from sight.

He would miss them terribly. He’d be damned if he didn’t already. But according to that otherworldly visitor, this was the first step leading him down a path toward something much greater than himself.  It was a shame he hadn’t him seen since that one fateful afternoon. He would soon, though. He had a suspicion that their next meeting would not be far in the future.

This wasn’t an eternal goodbye, he reassured himself. However long he was gone, he would return eventually. And to be sure, there was much more waiting for him when he did. He couldn’t begin to imagine what that would be. An entire universe of possibilities existed before him. As much of an endeavor as this would surely be, this was not the end. It couldn’t be further from that. 

This adventure would only be the beginning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Begin with a conclusion. Conclude with a beginning. Sometimes I think I'm fucking clever or something.  
> That's it. That's the end.   
> No more next chapters to see you in. I hope this last taste was a nice one.  
> Goodnight.


End file.
